This course makes the use of AI in education understandable for teachers of all technical levels. Teachers in the course benefit from an approach that focuses on breaking down AI-related concepts in a jargon-free way. It provides step-by-step guidance for integrating AI into daily classroom practices, featuring real-world examples of successful implementation.
Responsible AI Practices is designed to empower K-14 educators as leaders in implementing AI technology safely and ethically. A primary goal is to ensure both teachers and students understand the critical need for responsible AI use that directly addresses issues such as academic integrity and the importance of adhering to legal frameworks like FERPA and COPPA to safeguard student privacy and safety.
Designing Dynamic Units Using AI Tools teaches K-14 educators across all subjects how to use artificial intelligence to fundamentally transform and streamline the creation of unit, sequencing, and pacing guides, enabling greater personalization. The primary goal is to empower teachers with practical skills to design engaging unit plans and to develop broader instructional design skills using teacher-friendly applications.
Discover how artificial intelligence can revolutionize your lesson planning process and lesson activities. This course empowers educators to use AI tools to design engaging, differentiated, and standards-aligned lessons with greater efficiency and creativity. Participants will explore how AI can support curriculum development, pacing guides, and instructional design across grade levels and content areas using teacher-friendly applications.
AI-Powered Web and YouTube Resources is a dynamic course designed to equip K-14 educators with the skills to become innovative curriculum leaders by leveraging artificial intelligence to enhance student learning. This is a hands-on experience where you'll dive into the practical application of cutting-edge AI tools, including Language Learning Models (LLMs) and AI teacher assistants, drawing on high-quality resources from YouTube and various web platforms.
Unleash the creative potential of artificial intelligence in your classroom. AI and Creativity in the Classroom explores how AI can inspire and support student creativity across disciplines. From creative writing and visual arts to music and multimedia projects, educators will learn to integrate AI tools that foster innovation and imagination.
Unleash the creative potential of artificial intelligence in your classroom. AI and Creativity in the Classroom explores how AI can inspire and support student creativity across disciplines. From creative writing and visual arts to music and multimedia projects, educators will learn to integrate AI tools that foster innovation and imagination.
Creating Assessments and Grading with AI is a hands-on course specifically designed for K-14 educators who are ready to revolutionize their practice. This multifaceted course empowers you to harness next-generation Artificial Intelligence tools, including AI teaching assistants and Language Learning Models (LLM), to design personalized assessments and provide instant feedback that enhances students' learning.
Step into the future of teaching with the hands-on course, Modifying Educational Materials with AI. Discover how easy-to-use AI tools can streamline your workflow and help you create engaging, standards-based, personalized curriculum using existing resources. AI teaching assistants designed by teachers for teachers offer a wide range of optimized tools that enable you to import text files, PDFs, images, websites, handwriting, and YouTube videos.
Supporting Diverse Learners with AI empowers you to harness next-generation Artificial Intelligence to generate lessons, curricular materials, and activities that personalize the learning experience for students at all levels. Whether you are an AI novice or have some experience, this course provides the tools to address the urgent need to support diverse learners.
Transform how you connect with families in AI for Communication with Parents, a hands-on course designed to streamline your workflow and elevate every interaction. Whether you are a tech enthusiast or an AI novice, this course empowers you to use free, next-generation tools to save time and enhance professional clarity.
Teaching is a balancing act, and your time is your most valuable resource. AI for Teacher Productivity and Workload Reduction introduces AI as a transformative partner, giving you more time to focus on your students. This course supports all K-12 educators, regardless of experience, through hands-on activities, extensive tutorial resources, and methods to automate time-consuming tasks.
Navigating the 'Wild West' of AI in K-12 education? This hands-on online course moves beyond policing to foster a culture of high-level thinking. Shift your students from using AI as a shortcut to utilizing it as a powerful cognitive partner. By integrating AI tools like Brisk Teaching, MagicSchool AI, ChatGPT, Gemini, and Copilot, you will streamline your workflow while building a robust ethical framework.
Unlock the potential of an AI enriched classroom with Elevate Student Thinking with AI a premier installment in the AI Flash Innovative Course Series. This hands-on course is designed for all K-12 educators regardless of prior AI experience, who want to use AI as a partner to create curriculum that includes problem-based learning, the art of inquiry, ethical design, and digital critiquing skills.
Incorporate the power of Artificial Intelligence in your classroom while protecting you students' safety, privacy, and well-being. Student Protections and AI Tool Selections, part of the AI Flash Innovative Course Series, is a hands-on course designed specifically for K-12 teachers to navigate the intersection of student privacy and emerging AI technology.
Preparing for an AI-Infused Future is designed as a visionary roadmap for the long-term educational shift ahead. As AI evolves from a trend into a fundamental paradigm shift in instruction, the course empowers K-12 teachers to move beyond simple information retrieval toward high-level human-AI collaboration.
Drawing Magic is an online professional development course for educators that opens the door to discovering a world of creativity and confidence, with no special "art talent" required. The course is designed to make art accessible for every educator. Both experienced and new teachers will benefit from unique, step-by-step drawing experiences that support National Visual Arts Standards and can be easily adapted for your classroom.
The Magic of Paper provides students the opportunity to personally explore the unusual use of various papers in exciting new ways. Having been specifically designed to build confidence in the K-8 teacher with little or no previous art training or background in art education, this unique art course requires no "artistic talent" or "skill".
The art experiences in Building Self-Esteem Through Elementary Art have been specifically designed to assist students in developing a concrete realization of their own uniqueness and worth, as well as their important contribution to the whole.
The Watercolor Sketching for Students course is designed to enhance art instruction, teaching educators how to take their students on an artistic adventure into the world of watercolor sketching on location. The course focuses on the best ways to help students develop the technical skills of sketching and grow in their understanding and appreciation of the value of creating art.
This online art education course prepares educators to successfully teach students drawing techniques that improve their perceptual-cognitive skills. Teachers in all subjects can benefit from the course. Drawing skills increase the ability for students to accurately perceive, process and use visual information - skills that transfer to all disciplines of learning.
Observational drawing is a foundational skill for both the student and the teacher in the field of visual arts. It is a learned skill that requires concentration, analytical thinking, problem solving, and perseverance as one attempts to translate three-dimensional objects onto a two-dimensional surface.
Creativity is one of the most sought-after skills in the world. For thousands of years, it has been the primary means by which humanity has thrived. This course explores the creative process through artistic examples so you and your students can gain a greater understanding and become successful, creative individuals.
Discover the secrets behind the life and work of one of the most recognized, yet misunderstood, artists of the modern world, Vincent van Gogh. This 15-episode course by Professor Jean-Pierre Isbouts will take you on a fascinating journey as you unravel the mysteries of the artist's one-of-a-kind style.
Learning about art at a young age can have numerous benefits for students, fostering creativity and imagination, deepening students' cultural, societal and historical awareness, and fostering empathy and respect for different perspectives. The post-impressionist movement was a movement of innovation and experimentation.
Western art, from the ancient world to the present, offers far more than beautiful images-it provides powerful stories, cultural insight, and rich opportunities for teaching across the curriculum. In this 25-lecture course, K-12 educators gain both a strong foundation in Western art history and practical strategies for bringing these ideas into their classrooms.
In contemporary athletics programs (junior high, high school, collegiate) the issues of funding budgets and fundraising are becoming much more acute as traditional sources of funding are becoming more difficult to procure. Successful athletics programs are becoming increasingly tied to the coach and/or athletics director's ability to generate funds from external sources.
Any coach or athlete who achieves success in the arena of competitive sport does so because of a level of mastery in the mental aspects of athletic performance. All learning, improvement,and successful sport performance is intrinsically tied to the psychological dimension of motivation.
Any coach or athlete who achieves success in the arena of competitive sport understands that strong effective leadership and resilient team culture are essentials to successful achievement. This course offers the athletics coach powerful opportunities to learn and directly apply strong leadership and team-building principles with their coaching staff and team within the competitive sport context.
Being a successful coach is an enormous challenge. School administrators, parents, athletes, and entire communities all have high expectations of today's coaches. Think about the various elements of successful coaching beyond simply the skill requirements of the respective sport. The coaching profession requires the coach to function effectively as an administrator, leader, and psychologist.
This course provides very effective, practical ways in which the coach can teach strong character and sportsmanship to their athletes. The activities of this course will help the coach discover the significant linkages between team performance and strong character. It is designed to encourage the coach to think about the effects of athletics competition on the moral reasoning processes of the athlete.
This course will encourage the high school coach to think about the issues and facts that surround the usages of performance-enhancing supplements typically encountered in our athletically competitive world. The National Standards for Sport Coaches (NSSC) as part of the SHAPE national standards calls for coaches to be knowledgeable in the area of performance enhancing substances.
Examine gender differences and stereotypes of the female athlete in our competitive world. The National Standards for Sport Coaches (NSSC) as part of the NASPE national standards calls for coaches to be knowledgeable in the area of coaching methods relevant to understanding how to effectively work with various personalities and types of athletes, including the female athlete.
The idea that "speed is a gift you're either born with or without" is a myth. Many athletes and coaches adhere to this story without realizing there are established and effective methods to improve speed, form and run faster. In the Speed Training for Sports course, you'll learn these techniques and why they consistently work.
The Strength Training for Sports course gives educators the opportunity to explore the relationship between strength training and athletic performance. They learn to design training programs for both young athletes and fitness enthusiasts. They also learn how to create programs tailored to specific individuals as well as those designed for a specific sport.
Improve athlete development through smarter, more balanced training. The Cross-Training For Sports course explores the benefits of cross training in athletics to enhance sports conditioning and reduce the risk of overuse injuries. Learn how to integrate power, speed, agility, flexibility and strength exercises into existing routines for year-round performance.
Flexibility is essential for people who want to perform well in sports, maintain the benefits of fitness and reduce their risk of injury. The Stretching For Sports course is designed to help educators and coaches understand why flexibility declines and how to regain and maintain it through safe, effective stretching habits.
Explosive movements are at the heart of athletic performance. Explore how to safely and effectively develop the strength, speed and power that help athletes excel in the Plyometric Training for Sports course. You'll learn sports conditioning and how plyometric training enhances performance through dynamic exercises that use quick, powerful movements to increase muscle responsiveness.
Nutrition For Sports is a professional development course for educators that helps coaches and educators understand the critical role nutrition plays in athletic performance and overall health. Participants will learn how to guide athletes in maintaining proper sports nutrition. Through hands-on assignments, teachers will practice sports nutrition education by analyzing an athlete's diet, identifying areas for improvement and creating nutrition plans that support optimal performance.
This course is designed to provide the high school coach or teacher with the tools to maximize the muscular strength and power of their student-athletes by applying the latest breakthroughs in scientific research to his/her advanced training program. Participants will be exposed to both proven methods for developing advanced workouts and dozens of different exercises that result in the greatest stimulation in the muscles.
Periodization training is a year-round conditioning program structured into phases to meet sport-specific goals. By varying the timing and intensity of the workouts, the greatest gains in strength, speed, power, and endurance can be achieved. Learn how periodization works, why it is used and how to integrate it into a comprehensive training program.
Optimal power-the ideal combination of speed and strength-is the difference between a good athlete and a great athlete. This course provides all the tools to build sport-specific power and allow you to attain the highest level of performance. Every sport has unique power demands.
The best conditioning programs and technical instruction are beneficial only if the body's engine is properly fueled and ready to operate at peak efficiency. Far beyond the food pyramid, this course presents advanced nutritional concepts, including:a) timing of meals, fluid and training; b) digesting optimal ratios and quantities of energy nutrients, vitamins, and minerals; c) consuming fluids and electrolytes to avoid dehydration and hyper-hydration; d) identifying and maintaining a body composition capable of maximal power output with minimal excess weight for specific sports; and e) understanding the effects of travel, high altitude, and age on nutritional needs and performance.
Learn how to teach the technical and tactical skills of basketball. An important focus is on skill demonstration and error detection as participants learn to develop practice plans and complete other assignments to apply the learning immediately...in class or on the court!
This course is designed to provide an introduction to sports first aid injury prevention. It involves fulfilling the role of being a competent first responder to athletic injuries and illness. Many state high school associations, colleges and universities, and national governing bodies currently use, require, or recommend coach education in whole or in part to meet coaching education requirements for their organizations.
Learn the fundamentals of coaching the various events in track and field. Perform a detailed study on an event category of your choosing and create a detailed training program for an athlete competing in that event category. Course objectives are modeled after standards-based learning objectives for teachers and for coaches as outlined by the Society of Health and Physical Education (SHAPE America).
Enhance your knowledge base related to coaching cross country at the middle school level and above. Course objectives are modeled after standards-based learning objectives for teachers and for coaches as outlined by the Society of Health and Physical Education (SHAPE America). The course is project based including creating a training program and home management system.
Discover fundamental and advanced principles in a format that is appropriate for all levels of swimmers, from the beginner to the most seasoned veteran. Be exposed to a wide variety of coaching methods and learn training principles, racing strategies and aquatic safety. Course objectives are modeled after standards-based learning objectives for teachers and coaches as outlined by the Society of Health and Physical Education (SHAPE America).
This course is designed to provide an introduction to sport concussions. Included are an introduction to brain anatomy, causes of concussions and what happens to the brain when some one sustains a concussion; sign and symptoms and short and long-term effects associated with concussions; review of different concussion assessment/evaluation tools; examination of return to-play protocols; how to prevent concussions; treatment and rehabilitation of individuals who have sustained concussions; concussions in professional sport; and current trends and research on concussions.
This course is designed to present practical, real-life, applied experiences to the coach or teacher that will be immediately helpful in inspiring and motivating themselves and their athletes and students toward achievement levels that they may not have felt possible. The mental processes that bring about outstanding learning, achievement and excellence are the same whether it's in the academic, music, or athletics arena.
Discover the purposes and methods of using various taping techniques to support and protect injuries to bones, ligaments, tendons, muscles, nerves, and joints of the body. Be introduced to basic anatomy as it is related to taping and foundational taping techniques for lower body and upper body injuries.
The concept of interval training has exploded in recent years with the popularity of CrossFit, P90X, and other high-intensity training programs. However, interval training can also complement the student-athlete preparing for regular season games and peaking at the end of the season. Minimize the effects of fatigue while building and maintaining muscle mass, allowing student-athletes to increase strength, power, and agility.
It has been said that to be an excellent coach, one has to be an excellent teacher. The purpose of this class is to teach tactical and technical skills baseball so that you can be an excellent baseball coach. In addition, you'll be taught how to effectively design practice, in-season, off-season plans, and game plans.
It has been said that to be an excellent coach, one has to be an excellent teacher. The purpose of this class is to teach tactical and technical skills football so that you can be an excellent football coach. In addition, you'll be taught how to effectively design practice, in-season, off-season plans, and game plans.
Train smarter, not harder. That's the ultimate goal of Endurance Training for Sports. This course is designed for sports coaches and physical educators who are seeking a thorough understanding of how best to structure effective training programs for their students. You will learn to evaluate endurance fitness, set goals for improvement, and design programs to meet those goals.
Sports Biomechanics is an introductory course designed to introduce physical educators and coaches to the basic principles of biomechanics and their applications to human movement in sport and exercise. In simplest terms it is described as the physics of sports where the laws of mechanics are applied in order to gain a greater understanding of athletic performance.
Winning in the Locker Room draws on the extraordinary experiences of coaches and consultants at the professional and college level. It explores the seven powerful principles that any sports team, school, or business can adopt to revitalize their organization. Step by step, Coach Mike Smith and Jon Gordon outline a strategy for building a thriving organization.
Foam rolling is a popular and cost-effective massage technique that can be utilized with student athletes. It can be used to lessen aches and pains, increase flexibility and range of motion, improve performance, and accelerate recovery. In this course, students will learn what foam rolling is designed to do and how to perform it safely and correctly.
Pilates is a popular low-impact exercise technique. It can be used to improve many aspects of physical fitness such as strength, flexibility, coordination, speed, agility, and endurance. Pilates also enhances body control and awareness, reduces aches and pains, increases balance, improves performance, and accelerates recovery. In this course, students will learn what pilates is designed to do and how to perform it safely and correctly.
This online course covers the tactical and technical skills necessary for the successful teaching and coaching of competitive volleyball. You will learn to effectively design practice, in-season, off-season plans, and game plans in ways to optimize learning. The course is suitable for high school coaches, serious club coaches, college and university undergraduate students, and advanced coaches at the youth level.
Effectively working with parents is a very common issue for coaches. This course is designed to help the coach build strong positive relationships with their sport parents. The content of this course is presented from an applied perspective, designed to be immediately useful. The activities are specifically designed to acquaint and strengthen the coach to parent to athlete relationship triangle so that the result is a positive, supportive experience for all.
Obtain an overview of the Bible from Genesis through Revelation. Examine the composition of the biblical documents, and discover an overall analysis of the themes and storyline of the Bible. Be introduced to effective Bible study and teaching skills. Students will learn not only the overall content of the Bible but will be prepared through a series of assignments to effectively teach several units of study in this core document of the Christian faith and Western Civilization.
As citizens of the 21st Century, we are living in an age that is heavily influenced by a worldview that denies the reality of objective truth. The idea that the Bible represents absolute truths or holds any authority seems like a strange concept to many people. Many Christians do not feel prepared to interact with the questions contemporary people bring up in conversation.
This grade 6-12 online methods course is designed for Christian school educators, pastors, Bible and Sunday school teachers, and those interested in exploring the various teachings concerning the Apostle Paul's Epistle to the Romans. Paul's purpose in writing to the Romans was to proclaim the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ through practical, doctrinal teaching in order to edify and encourage believers.
This course is the first in a series of Computer Science Authorization courses that enable teachers to be credentialed to teach Computer Science and is designed to fulfill requirements for the California Computer Science Supplemental Authorization, but may be taken by those not seeking the Supplemental Authorization.
This computational thinking online course prepares K-12 educators on how to foster computational thinking through any discipline. Educators will develop practices to support students as they apply this thinking to problems inside and outside of the classroom.
Computer science has become a core discipline in our society and algorithmic thinking and problem-solving have become important skills. This online PD course aims to prepare educators to teach K-12 students in all curricular areas. Participants will learn several California K-12 Computer Science Standards and will utilize popular and accessible programming languages.
This course is the fourth in a series of Computer Science Authorization courses that enable teachers to be credentialed to teach Computer Science and is designed to fulfill requirements for the California Computer Science Supplemental Authorization, but may be taken by those not seeking the Supplemental Authorization. Content is applicable to educators in grades 6 through 14.
The course aims to prepare educators to successfully teach advanced computer programming for high school students in all curricular areas. Students will continue to develop their background in computer programming with the study of data structures; including arrays, linked lists, stacks, queues, and hash tables. Algorithms to manage these structures will also be a focus, including searching and sorting.
Career Lab: Explore, Connect, Launch! equips teachers with practical career development strategies that directly support student college and career readiness. Participants explore career interests, strengths, and pathways using structured reflection from What Color Is Your Parachute? Job-Hunter's Workbook, and What Color Is Your Parachute? For Teens, while examining how these same tools can be applied with students.
This course addresses the need for educators to engage with students as effective college-going advocates. National economic competitiveness as well as effective civic engagement require a well- educated work force and population. There are many obstacles that prevent far too many students from considering both the benefits and their ability of going to college.
This course is designed to strengthen participants' awareness and response to students who are victims of violence and aggression in our schools, as well as students who respond to conflicts and difficulties with undue aggression and bullying behavior. CASEL defines Social and Emotional Learning as the 'process through which children and adults understand and manage emotions, set and achieve positive goals, feel and share empathy for others, establish and maintain positive relationships and make responsible decisions.
This course is designed to strengthen participant's ability to develop and implement positive peer support, student leadership and adult mentoring programs for grades K-12. While the central mandate for our schools is student learning, students learn and behave better when they feel cared for and also experience a sense of connection with those around them.
This course is designed to strengthen the student's ability to develop and provide group counseling in schools for grades K-12. The course is intended for counselors, school psychologists, and educators interested in helping children and youth develop the relationships, skills, attitudes, and behaviors needed for success in school and in life. Concrete step-by-step plans for organizing and leading groups on a wide variety of topics and for all grade levels is provided.
Over half of public school students in the United States have experienced some form of trauma, which is associated with adverse effects on academic performance, behavior, and social emotional learning (SEL). This course is designed to help educators utilize trauma-informed strategies to create an environment that is safe and supportive for students who may have experienced trauma.
Dealing with parents is one of the most difficult tasks for teachers and administrators today. Yet it is essential to know how to handle difficult situations and to establish positive relationships with students' parents. This course will equip teachers and administrators with the skills needed to expertly navigate even the most challenging encounter with parents while feeling that you have made a positive and meaningful impact.
This course is designed for K-12 teachers, administrators, counselors, social workers, nurses, coaches, specialists and other educational professionals who seek to enhance their skills in meeting the needs of students who are coping with grief or loss. The course provides helpful, practical, information on the developmental stages and understandings of death, how to talk with students about death, and four important concepts about death for student understanding.
This course is designed for K-12 teachers, administrators, counselors, and other educational professionals who seek to enhance their skills in meeting the needs of students who are experiencing family changes through divorce and remarriage. Educators often play a critical role in providing structure, safety, and compassion for a student whose home life has been disrupted.
This is an empowering course designed to help educators manage anxiety, depression, procrastination, grief, addiction, worry, panic attacks, perfectionism, rejection, insomnia, and chronic pain using practical, evidence-based techniques from Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT).
Adverse childhood experiences, neglect, poverty, divorce, and other childhood stresses have radically changed school culture in the past ten years. In his most recent book, Paul Tough gives educators and care-givers practical, research-based ideas and suggestions for strengthening the non-cognitive skills in students like persistence and grit, relationship building, and developing a growth mindset to support social emotional learning (SEL).
What does it mean to be a practicing early childhood professional today? Make connections between the many California Department of Education guiding documents including but not limited to: California Preschool Learning Foundations and California Preschool Curriculum Frameworks Volumes 1, 2, 3, California Early Childhood Educator Competencies, and Alignment of California Common Core Standards to Key Early Learning Resources.
Explore, experience, and apply assessment strategies using observation tools and systems in the early childhood classroom. Explore tools and specific activities that apply the principles of state and national documents directly to classroom practice in child-centered and engaging methods. All course materials are provided through the online course website.
Explore the current research on the importance of social emotional learning (SEL) and development in young children. Design classroom application activities to support the social and emotional development of the young learner. Implement techniques to help your students develop positive social skills.
Discover how to meet the needs of all children in your classroom by implementing a differentiated curriculum. Include teaching strategies in all curricular areas to meet the diverse needs of all students including English learners, students with disabilities, academically challenged students, GATE students and multicultural students in the Preschool/Transitional Kindergarten classroom.
Discover how to plan and implement curriculum in a classroom that addresses the needs of all children. A focus on autism is included. Experience the challenges children with exceptionalities face in an all-inclusion classroom. Include teaching strategies in all curricular areas to meet the needs of all students in the Preschool/Transitional Kindergarten classroom.
Discover how to plan and implement teaching strategies and content in the area of science into the early childhood curriculum. Explore the Guiding Documents to help align your science curriculum with Foundations and Standards. Gain access to current research for science in early childhood classrooms.
English language arts and literacy are important in the Common Core Standards, and this course will help you understand the Core standards and address the standards without being constrained or limited. The course focuses on the fundamental aspects of literacy, a solid foundation for reading and writing, student inquiry, differentiated instruction and culturally relevant best teaching practices.
We all know how important it is to get parents on board when it comes to their children. Explore the issues of educating parents through the study of specific developmental assets that integrate factors such as family dynamics, support from community adults, values development and social skills. Parenting is a process and has a variety of rights, responsibilities and roles that change across the lifespan.
Understand and make connections between counting as a foundational math concept and how it leads to and supports the development of later developing skills, including: number sequences, base ten number system, counting principles, cardinality, one-to-one correspondence, comparing, subitizing, and more.
This course will help you improve early math learning in your preschool classroom by understanding practical strategies that can be used to support children's success in patterning, while gaining confidence for yourself as a capable math teacher! You will learn to develop patterning opportunities that are intentional, developmentally appropriate, engaging, and playful.
Develop an understanding of the 'why' behind behavior problems in the early childhood classroom. Once you've understood the why, learn how to best apply practical behavior management strategies and solutions in the classroom. Discover supportive social emotional curriculum and resources intended to support behavior prevention and management
This course is designed to build educators' confidence and competence in incorporating STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) concepts and bringing them alive in the early childhood education classroom. STEM concepts advance children's cognitive and creative thinking skills and introduce them to a variety of topics and concepts that support their learning and growth in all other academic areas.
This course will introduce you to eight key practices to apply in supporting young children's early literacy development: knowing, showing, designing, including, engaging, observing and responding. Intentional focus on the following areas is incorporated: language and knowledge, print concepts, sounds and letters, writing, text comprehension.
The focus of this course is promoting the active engagement of all students by embedding cooperative structures into daily instruction. Participants will gain a foundational understanding of cooperative learning at both the theoretical and implementation levels. Participants will engage in a variety of learning activities such as reading the works of leading theorists, creating original definitions and rationale for use of cooperative learning.
When games are integrated into a meaningful way in your classroom they have the power to keep students motivated, engaged, and curious. Games are not only a novelty but they provide an attractive framework for learning and make learning fun for students. In this course you will have the opportunity to explore how traditional games as well as the plethora of online instructional games will enhance instruction in the content areas.
Most everyone enjoys holidays, but few clearly understand the meanings, traditions, and values behind these special days. Holidays tell us much about the past and also about the values that those in the present find worth preserving for the future. Learn how to use holidays to teach a variety of subject areas across the K-12 curriculum.
Just think about it! Our students must learn to problem solve, apply, critically evaluate, create and collaborate to be successful in the 21st Century. Explore a rich variety of thinking-to-learn best practices. Turn your classroom into a thinking highly engaging learning laboratory. Learn to use mind mapping, scatter techniques, claims activities and integrated tech tools.
This engaging and informative course on character education offers a close look at Common Core State Standards, National Standards, classroom lessons, and best practices. A classroom-based unit of study focuses on important elements of character education, including community service, parent involvement, citizenship, civics, conflict resolution, values, and more. A variety of active online assignments will inspire you and your students!
Explore geography skills of map reading, globe study, and land formations such as rivers, mountains, lakes, and oceans. Learn the effect geography has on the development of civilization. Geography studies the relationship between the earth and its people. Discover what Geographers are interested in, where people, plants, and animals live and where rivers, lakes, mountains, cities, and other geographic features are found.
Discover the remarkable achievements of women in math and science and be inspired by their resilience in the face of obstacles and prejudice. This course, designed for teachers of grades 3 through 12, explores the reasons behind the ongoing underrepresentation of women in STEM fields and provides educators with compelling stories of trailblazing women who have paved the way for future generations.
Have you wondered how to capture the excitement of children's literature for the purpose of teaching mathematics? A great story can become a springboard for teaching or reinforcing a mathematical concept. Learn how the linking of mathematics and literacy effectively enhances children's learning. Ideas and sample lessons will enable you to design and teach activities appropriate for K-6 grade levels.
Learn how to teach K-12 students to reflect, share ideas and understand the meaning of math through writing. Teach students to explain and justify their thinking to others. Writing helps them organize their thoughts and procedures clearly. Writing in the mathematics classroom also provides opportunities for students to rethink explanations as peers listen and respond.
How can teachers inspire learning in the K-12 classroom? Enhance student achievement by pairing strategies with course content. Instructional Strategies to Inspire Learning is designed for teachers to implement Robert Marzano's nine strategies with additional McREL 2010 research to increase achievement. Teachers will apply a framework for instructional planning with strategies that creates an engaging classroom environment that inspires learning.
Whether you teach grades K-12 or are a specialized teacher, a professor of higher education, or lead in an administrative capacity, Action Research is the course for you. This research course will make an impact on your own practice, your school, districts, and education as a whole. Through the exploration of intentional research, participants will target an area of personal concern and explore possible solutions and interventions that can improve practice.
Inspire and encourage active meaningful participation, collaboration, and quality task completion. You will learn student-centered activities that motivate your students. Gather a wide variety of fresh resources, observe best-practice strategies and collect standards/CCSS-aligned lessons that meet your needs, any core area, K-12.
Inspire and encourage active meaningful participation, collaboration, and quality task completion. You will learn student-centered activities that motivate your students. Gather a wide variety of fresh resources, observe best-practice strategies and collect standards/CCSS-aligned lessons that meet your needs, any core area, K-12.
Kahoot! is a game-based learning platform that makes lessons interactive and engaging. Students can play through a web browser or the mobile app, making it easy to use in both classrooms and distance learning. Teachers can create custom games and quizzes, called "Kahoots," or choose from millions of pre-made, teacher-approved options.
Biblical Worldview Integration is teaching a lesson objective and teaching it from a Christian perspective. It is not a class devoid of God, nor is it solely about God. It is a melding of the two. It is understanding the objective or lesson from the Christian point-of-view. Being able to meld the two is quite a difficult process, but a process this course aims to help teachers be able to bring to their classroom.
Visual note taking is one of the best ways to learn and process new information. Sketchnotes for Comprehension is not a course for artists or those who want to become artists. It is a course for those who want to improve or teach others to improve in the skills of taking better notes. Through this course, you will learn the foundations of how to teach your students to take notes that will help them organize and retain information in a fun and powerful way.
You don't have to be Superman, Batman, or Wonder Woman in this class. Instead, learn about your superpowers that simply need development. This course uncovers strategies to increase productivity and performance on a professional and personal level. Research demonstrates that people who implement the strategies of Habit, Mindset, Willpower, Meditation, and Forgiveness into a weekly if not daily routine have a more impactful life filled with achievement and fulfillment.
Skills for Academic Success is a professional development course designed to help educators teach essential student success skills. Ideal for teachers, counselors, and administrators, this course offers practical tools to create an environment that supports academic achievement and personal growth.
Bring passion, energy, and creativity into your classroom engagement strategies with the Teach Like a Pirate: Book Application professional development course from Fresno Pacific University. Inspired by the bestselling book, "Teach Like a Pirate" by Dave Burgess, this course equips educators with powerful student engagement strategies that capture attention and inspire a love of learning.
Teach Like Finland: Book Application is a professional development course designed for K-12 educators who want to apply Finnish education practices to their own classrooms. Grounded in the world-renowned Finnish education model, this course focuses on building joyful, student-centered learning environments that support engagement, well-being, and meaningful academic growth.
Explore the National Core Arts Standards as a guide to provide quality arts education in your classroom! Gain a repertoire of purposeful games to engage your students and give them a new perspective in the subjects you are already teaching: literature, science or history! Understand grace in your classroom as you implement the Creating, Performing, Responding, Connecting process.
Transform the way your students engage with text by turning public speaking into an exciting, creative classroom tool. Designed specifically for K-5 educators, this independent study course bridges the gap between literacy and oral communication by mastering three distinct public speaking genres: Storytelling (retelling in one's own words), Oral Interpretation (bringing literature to life while staying true to the text), and Traditional Speaking (delivering presentations with visual aids).
If you are looking for an inspirational read on how to meet the challenges of transforming education for the 21st century, then Sir Ken Robinson, Ph.D., and Lou Aronica's Creative Schools: The Grassroots Revolution That's Transforming Education is the book for you. Robinson is one of the world's most influential voices in education, and his engaging 2006 TED Talk on the subject is the most viewed in the organization's history (Ken Robinson: Do schools kill creativity?).
Gamification in the Classroom is an online professional development course for educators that gives teachers the chance to set sail on an educational adventure! This game-based course equips you with powerful strategies to use gamification in education to boost student motivation and engagement.
Join an award-winning author, podcaster, instructional technologist and blogger. This Shake Up Learning book application course is for educators wanting to transform their classrooms and schools by rebuilding lesson plans into dynamic learning opportunities. Think through the lens of your students. What do they want from a teacher? What responsibilities do they take for their successes and failures in the classroom? How do they think teaching could be improved?
Read about the story of J.D. Vance, a self-proclaimed hillbilly from Appalachia. Like millions of others, his family left the hills in search of a better life. 'You can take a man out of the mountains, but you can't take the mountains out of the man.' However, Vance points out that the road north was filled with dramatic changes. A stranger in a strange land, his culture and family dysfunction almost destroyed his prospects of a better life.
This class will guide high school teachers through a survey of plays by African Americans to gain an understanding and empathy for African American culture. These texts will expose the reader to an array of experiences within the African American culture, including nuances such as racism within the culture, identity, self-image, and generational differences.
This course explores "The Whole-Brain Child" by Dr. Dan J. Siegel and Tina Payne Bryson, helping educators understand the brain's role in student behavior. It examines child cognitive development and how the logical left and emotional right brain develop and integrate, influencing reactions to stress. Educators will learn 12 emotional regulation strategies to integrate whole-brain teaching into their classroom and help students reprogram their responses in healthy ways.
Lost at School, Why Our Kids with Behavioral Challenges Are Falling Through the Cracks and How We Can Help Them challenges educators to reconsider the nature of struggling students and how we can help them build the skills they need to be successful learners. Most educators encounter students who seem to defy the classroom norms and are frustrated that standard discipline methods have limited success or have worsened the situation.
Why do some people overcome difficult circumstances and excel while others don't? What makes some people successful? In this class, you will discover what psychologist Angela Duckworth's research has learned about high achievers in her book Grit: The power of passion and perseverance. Her book provides a research-based explanation of her Grit theory, how to develop grit internally and externally and how passion and perseverance relate to social emotional learning (SEL).
Discover how the minds of your students acquire, process, store, and retrieve information. This course includes a fascinating, 24-video lecture series from The Great Courses that covers topics on learning theories, learning strategies, learning language, learning styles, the role of emotion in learning, cultivating desire to learn, and the domains of learning. This course will not only provide valuable, research-based learning theory, but will allow you the opportunity to make practical application to your teaching.
We live busy lives. Each person has 24 hours in a day and 7 days in a week. So why do some people get more out of their time? This course hacks the experts on productivity. Each module offers brilliant insights into getting the most of your precious time out of each day, which can be applied and shared with students and colleagues. Consider lessons learned from minimalists like Thoreau and the Amish.
How do you break through to students who have not been taught empathy or racial reconciliation at home? How can you prepare your students for adulthood by teaching them to cultivate an awareness of their biases, or the effects of bullying? Through Process Drama, your students will gain empathy for the human experience by guided activities that take little set-up and few materials.
This course is an introduction to the theory and practice of performance assessment. It examines classroom-based assessment tasks, including visual representations, tasks using writing, oral presentations, and challenging projects and performances. Various methods of assessment are reviewed, analyzing how they inform the teaching/learning experience.
How do we cultivate young people who are imaginative, inquisitive, innovative, and intrinsically motivated? In his inspirational book, Creating Innovators, education expert Tony Wagner explores practices that nurture passion, play, and purpose in the society-shapers of tomorrow. Creating innovators doesn't take an immediate overhaul of the school system. Wagner offers small, practical steps readers can take to shape cultures of innovation.
SD. Distance Learning Playbook is an essential hands-on book application course that assists in preparing and delivering distance learning or remote learning experiences that are truly effective and impactful for the students. Effective teaching is effective teaching, no matter where it occurs or the delivery method used. Today, teachers have the opportunity to prepare for distance learning with purpose and intent. Learn what works best to accelerate students' learning, engage students, develop meaningful relationships, all the while maintaining an indelible focus on equity.
This introductory course explores strategic methods and best practices in curriculum design and implementation for differentiating instruction that meets the needs of all students. Educators learn and implement successful strategies for "teaching to the diversity" in today's classrooms. Ongoing forums allow for reflection and refinement of individual teaching practice.
This course provides an advanced look at the theory, design, and implementation of differentiated curriculum. Strategies and tools for responsive teaching are researched, used, and reflected upon. Technology is used as a major vehicle to differentiate content, process and product. Candidates will interact with district student information systems, research information literacy and Web 2.0 tools, utilize graphic organizer software, and presentation products.
From first steps to alphabets, all children are born with a natural inclination to learn. Although most educators are familiar with the merits of play, many schools struggle to put play to work for classroom learning. This fully online course will introduce teachers to playful pedagogies that support academic learning at any level. Play-oriented lessons provide students with opportunities to imagine, create, ask questions, take risks, and collaborate.
Discover a set of flexible teaching practices for making students' thinking visible. Developed through decades of research at Harvard's Project Zero, visible thinking establishes classroom routines that help students learn how to think. When students are able to make their thinking visible, teachers can better guide learning for deepened understanding.
This class will guide you through a survey of Asian American plays, focusing on the Chinese and Japanese American experiences as represented through drama. The goals of this course will be to gain an empathy for these cultures by engaging five plays, studying themes within the required plays, and making comparisons to other Asian American media
This class will guide you through a survey of plays by/about Latino Americans to gain an understanding and empathy for Latino American culture. These plays will expose you to an array of experiences within the Latino American culture: dreams and expectations of American life, identity as Latino Americans, self-image, and generational tensions. You will make correlations between assigned plays and other mediums of Latino American media.
This course will take the teacher through the interactive book 'How to Teach your Children Shakespeare', by Ken Ludwig. You will learn the value of teaching students how to memorize Shakespeare's passages, strategies of memorization, and make social emotional connections for your students with famous themes and characters.This course will give teachers something new and exciting in their toolbag!
Dive into the neuroscience of learning and learn how to maximize the learning mechanisms in your brain and your students' brains! Explore the current brain research findings on psychological and neural mechanisms that work together in the process of learning and memory in the human brain to make you a more effective learner and teacher.
Learn how to effectively incorporate QR codes into your teaching practice to enhance student learning and engagement. QR codes are two-dimensional barcodes that can be scanned using a smartphone or tablet, providing quick access to digital content and resources. Throughout the course, participants will explore a range of strategies and techniques for using QR codes in the classroom, including creating scavenger hunts, designing interactive assignments, and gamifying learning experiences.
Educators should always seek to engage, encourage and inspire students. Wayground (formerly Quizizz) is a free online learning platform that offers interactive quizzes and games for teachers, students, and administrators. These stakeholders can benefit from using Wayground because it is a proven platform for enhancing engagement, providing instant feedback and assessment, and facilitating personalized learning.
How do humans learn? How do the ways that humans learn affect you and those you teach and lead? This course will integrate theories from neuroscience, psychology, cognitive science, and other disciplines into a framework for the principles of learning, then show you how to apply the framework for the principles of learning. By applying the framework for the principles of learning in your areas of influence, you can maximize learning for everyone you teach and lead.
Join us in exploring the dynamic world of esports and learn how to create a program that captivates and engages students. This course covers the strategies, standards, and key pillars that drive impactful esports programs. Discover essential strategies for developing an effective esports curriculum, fostering leadership, and prioritizing student well-being.
Music has played a key role in social change throughout America's history. Students will learn about the influence of music on social change including US conflicts, the rise of Women Suffrage, political movements. The course will move from the pre-colonial period and the music of immigrants to the modern conflicts of the Gulf War. This course will enrich history lessons as well as provide a forum of discussion on the current political and societal landscape and the influence of music.
This comprehensive course is designed for teachers from preschool to college who are committed to create an inclusive learning environment using the Principles of Universal Design for Learning (UDL). You will learn to meet diverse learners' needs, increasing accessibility and engagement across all subject areas.
With student reading scores declining and attention challenges rising nationwide, many teachers are reexamining the role of technology in the classroom. This course explores practical strategies for creating more focused, connected, and intentional learning experiences with reduced reliance on screens.
Creativity is one of the most important skills educators can cultivate-yet many teachers and leaders have never been taught a practical process for developing it. In The Creative Thinker's Toolkit, you will discover research-based strategies for generating innovative ideas, solving complex challenges, and creating learning environments where creativity thrives.
This course is designed to guide teachers through a series of activities and thought processes that have been found to be effective in creating effective classroom learning environments. The strategies included are supported in the large body of research that exists in the area of student discipline and have proven to be helpful to teachers working in their classrooms.
Whether you are a new or a seasoned teacher, the nagging questions keep surfacing in our minds: How can I be a more effective teacher; how can I empower my students to achieve academically, behaviorally, and socially? This online course will answer these questions and equip you to be the most effective teacher ever!
Let's be pragmatic, you either love homework or hate homework. However, it is inevitable that homework is and always will be a part of our educational landscape. Whether you align yourself closer to the no-homework camp or to the pro-homework camp, the debate will continue to rage on for decades. It is the cause of more friction between administrators, teachers, and families than any other aspect of education.
Motivation, effort, interest and desire to learn are key to student success. Learn to maximize student potential using a variety of strategies designed to increase student engagement in relevant learning activities and raise student academic performance. You will learn to analyze the role student engagement, motivation and effort play in learning, apply research and evaluate current practices to determine instructional gaps.
Classroom Restorative Discipline, also known as Discipline that Restores (DTR) is a restorative discipline system for schools and classrooms. This course will show you how to resolve conflicts and practice problem-solving techniques that are based on a step-by-step process developed by Dr. Ron and Roxanne Claassen, based on their book, Discipline That Restores: Strategies to Create Respect, Cooperation, and Responsibility in the Classroom.
To plan effectively for change, leaders must know where they are, where they want to go and how they will get there. Strategic planning provides a framework to create, adjust, and align the organization's vision and beliefs with identified goals to sustain forward momentum and achieve desired results. The purpose of this course is to support the effective implementation of the Restorative Discipline program.
StrengthsFinder is an innovative personal development tool developed by the Gallup Organization that zeros individuals in on their strengths rather than weaknesses. It is a strengths development program designed to give people the opportunity to develop strengths by building on their greatest talents! This course will help develop teacher leaders by exploring what they do well, and then finding ways to apply those talents authentically and productively.
Have you ever wondered the best way to resolve conflict in your classroom? This course is designed for teachers, administrators and other educational professionals from Pre-K through 14. Learn best practices and methods currently being used in conflict resolution in the classroom. Not only will you build skills to reach students, you will become a go-to for other teachers, staff and school community stakeholders.
This cognitive approach to managing human behavior can be taught to students and parents for life-long social and emotional learning, self-esteem development, and healthy lifestyle choices. Learning and using Choice Theory, students & teaching staff learn how to be fully responsible for making more effective decisions and choices in their academic and personal lives.
This course is designed to provide participants (teachers, school counselors, and administrators) with the theory, models, skills, and strategies to train students (grades 3-12) to be peer mediators and peacemakers using the Making Things Right (MTR) curriculum by Ron and Roxanne Claassen, pioneers in the field of restorative justice practices.
This is a course for teachers, grades K-12, to encourage the integration of the PBIS principles into their classroom management. They will identify the behavioral issues addressed by PBIS at their grade level. Teachers will explore PBIS for their chosen grade level and select the skills that will reinforce behavioral standards for their age group. This course addresses the five core propositions of the National Teaching Standards.
This class will introduce some skill sets that can be acquired and used in becoming an effective communicator with students, parents, and colleagues, increasing a teacher's ability to make significant connections with everyone. Many of the tools discussed in this class are not usually taught in a typical teacher training program, but once recognized and practiced can make a huge difference for anyone's effectiveness in their professional career and private life.
Engage and motivate students to learn and achieve even when they are falling short of standards and achievement. This course will apply intentional teaching with high-yield learning strategies. Examine how to create small specific adjustments to lesson planning, teaching, and assessment practices that will engage students, at-risk students, English Language Learners and Special Education students.
According to educator Rick Smith, being a new teacher is like trying to fly a plane while building it. If you've ever been a first-year teacher, you know exactly what that means. There are times you feel like you are frantically trying to attach the wings before the aircraft goes into a tailspin. All new teachers need someone they can count on for encouragement and support. That's where you come in.
This course is designed for teachers and administrators of all grade levels and provides basic conflict management and meditation instruction, skill development, strategies, and practice based on the process of peace-making and restorative justice based discipline in the classroom. Positive Discipline in the Classroom articulates a reproducible step-by-step process to increase cooperation and mutual respect.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts that the employment of teachers of all levels will grow between 2016 and 2026, with almost a quarter of a million new teaching jobs opening before 2026. Unfortunately, this is due to a phenomenon called teacher burnout. Over half of U.S. teachers report that their morale is low, and more teachers than ever are leaving the profession within the first five years in the classroom.
Educators- teachers, administrators, counselors and coaches (K-12) -are often feeling pushed to their personal and professional limits as they strive to meet the complex demands of their roles. This course is taught by a former school counselor and current consultant to teachers, administrators, and parents as a licensed therapist.
In today's multicultural world, educators look for ways to connect with their students and colleagues as effectively as possible. The online Cultural Intelligence in Education course helps educators enhance their cultural intelligence related to education delivery, both in the classroom and in multiple capacities around campus for K-12.
Our teen years are filled with heightened emotions, the push and pull of independence, and excitement of applying abstract principles. Instead of giving readers a toolbox of how to "deal" with the struggles of emerging teens, Dr. Siegel informs us of how the rapidly growing brain is affecting actions and choices, and he invites us into coming alongside this age group with healthy guidelines and appropriate encouragement.
Teachers and administrators will learn the types of executive skills that are essential for student learning, how to recognize strengths and weaknesses with students and how to practically improve students' executive skills in order to better access curriculum. This course will help administrators, counselors, and teachers in the Student Study Team (SST) process by providing specific strategies for intervention if executive skills are the reason a student is struggling as well as provide supports to parents to help their children develop skills to improve their learning.
Understanding teenage addictions is the first step to intervention and support of those in your classroom who may struggle with overcoming alcoholism, stealing, pornography, and a multitude of drug dependencies. This course provides an overview on common addictions that prevent today's middle and high school students from academic and personal success.
Emotional resilience is an important skill to master for educators who face emotionally charged challenges every day. The Cultivating Emotional Resilience in Educators professional development course builds this skill using strategies Elena Aguilar outlined in her book, Onward: Cultivating Emotional Resilience in Educators.
Teachers face unprecedented stress and demands in the current educational landscape. But, as the WestEd Center for Social and Emotional Learning and School Safety reported, in order to support others, educators must support themselves first. In fact, across helping professions generally, self-care is considered an ethical imperative (Pate, 2020).
Are you aware that experiences you had as a young child (some you may not even be able to remember) are still influencing you and your behaviors today, as an adult? Dr. Nadine Burke Harris, MD explores the long-term effects of childhood adversity in her book and gives strategies for how to heal them.
Mindfulness is an approach that helps teachers and students navigate the social-emotional challenges of the classroom. For teachers, mindful awareness cultivates a compassionate 'noticing' of the internal and external experience of teaching. Teachers who both sense and observe these experiences can respond to classroom circumstances rather than react to them.
Mindfulness is the awareness and acceptance of each present moment in time. Mindfulness can be cultivated by paying attention to thoughts, feelings, senses, and surroundings. Neuroscience research shows that the practice of mindfulness grows connections in the brain that improve the ability to self-regulate emotions, thoughts, behavior, and attention. This is welcome news for teachers and their students as they co-navigate the many opportunities and challenges of school.
Mindfulness is a practice increasingly making its way into schools. Mindfulness can be defined as "the awareness that arises through paying attention, on purpose, in the present moment, non-judgmentally" (Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn). Cultivating mindful awareness through exercises of attention, noticing, and compassion has been shown to rewire our brains in ways that make us happier, calmer, and energized.
This course equips educators with the tools and strategies to foster character in the classroom by focusing on core virtues such as honesty, integrity, compassion, humility, perseverance and self-control. Designed for K-8 teachers, this course emphasizes the integration of character education into everyday lessons, helping students develop ethical and moral reasoning alongside academic growth.
Discover evidence-based techniques to foster happiness and overcome obstacles to well-being. Designed for educators, this course offers a blend of personal growth and professional strategies, equipping you to apply the science of happiness within educational environments.
Step confidently into your role as a teacher leader by discovering who you are as a leader and how you can influence change in your school community. In this course, you will explore your leadership identity, clarify your mission and vision, and design the principles that guide your daily practice. You'll engage in activities such as conducting a personal SWOT analysis, applying Patrick Lencioni's Working Genius model, and building collaborative team structures that foster purposeful growth.
One of the most important, but usually neglected aspects is training office staff, teachers, counselors, and administrators how to develop a community environment that focuses on Teamwork among all staff and students as well. This course will give all of the aforementioned individuals hands-on experience of training that can be applied to any work environment.
Strong early literacy instruction can shape a child's entire school experience. The Developmental Reading Methods and Activities course is designed for educators seeking fresh, practical ideas for teaching reading skills in engaging ways. You'll explore how to nurture confident readers using activities that fit different learning styles, abilities and classroom settings.
Learn to remember. Remember to learn. Learn to apply Sprenger's 7 stages of learning/memory and Marzano's strategies to develop academic language and retain information. Content is applicable, K-12, all curriculum areas and fully aligns with the Common Core Standards (CCSS) to support development of language, reading and literacy skills.
Emergent Literacy is a review of the research, related activities, and learning strategies for building literacy in the young learner. Emergent Literacy is a multifaceted process. The ability to associate print with meaning begins early in a child's life and continues until the child reaches the stage of conventional reading and writing.
Learn research-based theory connected to classroom application activities that will help provide success for your students in early literacy. Designed for kindergarten and first grade teachers this course combines research, theory and practice with reading skills using the child-centered theme of The Gingerbread Man. The course assignments may be completed with or without classroom student participation.
Teachers recognize that equipping students with essential writing tools will shape them into strong and effective communicators. Writing is a practical and enriching skill that will always be valued, no matter what career or vocational field students choose. This online professional development course is designed to explore the writing process, as well as the types, styles and mechanics of writing.
Engage your students with visual and printed texts by bringing the big screen into your classroom. This online, standards-based course invites teachers to discover how 'reading' films strengthens the analytical and critical thinking skills of their students. Visual texts, such as film, offer an innovative way to help students 'see' literary structures and reading strategies in action.
Teaching grammar has never been so fun--or effective! Students of this online course will discover how innovative instructional strategies can make the teaching of grammar and mechanics rewarding and meaningful. Designed for teachers of grades 4-12, this standards-based course offers practical ways to reinforce the conventions of language within the context of student writing.
This course is designed to help teachers understand and effectively employ effective, current, research-based methods and strategies in teaching English Language Learners in the secondary classroom while addressing the standards. Mainstream English courses often include ELL students at a variety of levels, including both students who are recent immigrants and students who have lived in the US for many years but still have limited English capabilities.
This content comprehension course helps teachers understand the struggling reader. The course offers practical strategies that help students succeed with reading in their content area classes. Teachers apply these strategies in the classroom with the reading material they are already using, helping students to understand, make connections and ultimately succeed within their content area classes.
Remember The Three R's- Reading, 'Riting' and 'Rithmetic'? The enduring paradigm for generations of school children. These basic skills -- these building blocks, if you would -- are timeless, treasured skills. This course focuses on the 'Reading and wRiting' - the Literacy component to the three R's.
Inspire and engage students with a love of poetry! This online, standards-based course explores a variety of methods for single-subject teachers to bring poetry into their classroom. Students are naturally drawn to poetry. This course will invite teachers to use a variety of approaches with poetry in their classroom and discover poetry that is both appropriate and accessible for their students.
Are you interested in creative ideas for teaching literary elements in your classroom? Teaching Literary Elements (6-12) is an online, standards-based course, designed to introduce and explore new tools and strategies for teaching literary elements. Particular attention is given to character, setting, point of view and theme. Students will have the opportunity to design practical, hands-on activities that will engage students with a variety of texts.
Discover how to use documentaries to help your students become better readers and interpreters of nonfiction texts. Documentaries and Nonfiction offers a creative and innovative approach to teaching nonfiction reading strategies within all disciplines. The critical thinking skills students learn while reading documentaries will transfer naturally to their reading of nonfiction print texts.
Essential Strategies for Understanding in ELA engages teachers from all disciplines, K-12th grade, to examine seven thinking strategies for your Educator-Strategy Toolbox for in-person, virtual or hybrid classrooms. The essential meaning making strategies are: Conceptualizing, Note Making and Summarizing, Comparing, Reading for Understanding, Predicting and Hypothesizing, Visualizing and Graphic Representation, and Perspective Taking and Empathizing.
Are you ready to learn more about close reading strategies and how to help your students become more active, thoughtful, engaged and independent readers? This online, standards-based course introduces and explores the idea of close reading with narrative texts in grades 4-12. Using self-selected novels, teachers will examine and learn how to create effective and engaging lesson plans using close reading, signposts, anchor questions and reading assessments, all aligned with the Common Core State Standards.
Picture Power Book (PreK-3) is an online professional development course that helps educators harness the power of picture books to support early childhood literacy development and student engagement. Picture books and children's literature offer rich opportunities for building reading skills, fostering comprehension and creating meaningful connections to text.
Independent reading can be a dynamic and powerful experience that will help your students become more proficient readers! In this class you will learn about engaging readers, building motivation, creating a reading community, encouraging accountability and developing critical readers all through independent reading. You will explore and design an effective and supportive independent reading structure for your classroom.
Graphic novels are growing in popularity across all grades as students discover engaging and exciting texts. Learn about graphic novels, visual literacy, and how to engage students with fun, accessible, and interesting texts on a variety of topics. Students will have the opportunity to read and engage with fiction and non-fiction graphic novels of their choice, as well as develop dynamic lessons that will support all readers and writers in the classroom.
Providing a diverse and culturally sensitive curriculum is essential in today's classrooms. In the online Multicultural Literature & Teaching course, educators engage in discussions and learning opportunities for supporting diverse learners and exploring multicultural literature with their students.
Explore health education strategies and the foundations of wellness education with the Fit For You: A Guide to Wellness course. The course prepares educators to teach students that achieving true wellness involves more than just being physically fit; it also requires finding balance in body, mind and spirit.
Your classroom must be a place for the next generation of young Americans to develop appreciation for the joy of learning, as well as acquiring a solid foundation for a healthy lifestyle. The theme of the class is 'every teacher is a health teacher.' The objective is to help students establish life-long living habits and skills.
Health is not limited to the physical side of mankind. It's the all-encompassing subject that deals with life itself in all of its glory, frustrations, disappointment, and triumphs. This course is designed to assist the high school teacher in better understanding the health issues students confront and often bring to school.
This course is designed to help teachers and their students acquire an historic and consumer perspective of dieting. Different diet routines and their planned outcomes will be reviewed along with their associated medical implications. Cultural expectations, personal motivation, and the regimen of exercise will be explored.
The biggest contributors to developing childhood obesity are soda consumption, junk food, television, video games and computers. This course focuses on the current legislation to combat the obesity epidemic in your state's schools. Schools must adopt policies that restrict access to less nutritious food choices and provide students with healthy food items.
Discover the newest ideas in health and fitness and research available. The World Wide Web offers a journey to diverse and creative approaches in teaching health and fitness. This Online course provides teachers the opportunity to explore Internet sites devoted to lessons in health and fitness. Course participants will evaluate different Websites and use them to create lessons for their classrooms.
This stress management course is designed to help you develop the knowledge and skills needed to teach your students about the detrimental effects that are associated with an excessive levels of stress and tension. Learn how to manage a stress-free classroom to improve the learning experience.
Healthy Environments focuses on teaching good environmental stewardship, which promotes positive environmental health. Today's students live in a world where environmental issues exist all around them. Global climate change, chemicals of concern, and degradation of natural resources are just a few of the many issues that they must deal with. However, teaching kids about environmental sustainability provides them life skills to make contributions now and helps define who they will become later in life.
A child's physical and mental well-being connects through a healthy sense of self-esteem. Research shows that unconditional love is fundamental for bringing forth healthy self-esteem. In this course, participants learn a step-by-step approach to help students navigate their social and inner worlds. Students are set for success in their learning and throughout their lives by developing and maintaining healthy self-esteem.
Medical emergencies and natural disasters can occur at any time and place. Knowing what to do can save a person's life or unnecessary visits to the doctor or emergency department. This course is intended to be a resource for any teacher or administrator concerned about the health and safety of their students, school, or community.
Discover how to promote and enhance the health and well being of your students and staff by providing coordinated health and support services. This course is dedicated to helping the nation's schools make healthier choices, which will benefit teachers and their students. The tips and strategies outlined in this course are a means to assist in creating a positive environment at the school site.
Want to make a lasting impact on your students' health? Teaching kids healthy eating habits is key to their overall well-being. The Healthy Eating professional development course gives educators the tools to do just that! This course offers practical, research-backed strategies to promote nutrition education in the classroom. Teachers learn to help students follow a balanced diet for optimal health, set realistic goals with healthy rewards, overcome barriers to good nutrition and manage triggers for unhealthy eating.
Addressing public health challenges in the 21st century requires that teachers, counselors, and students are familiar with current technology. There are many technical options available to engage students and open-up new possibilities for teaching, learning, and motivating. During this course, you will learn about developing informative presentations, engaging videos, and leveraging the latest health apps and websites.
Financial Wellness is a professional development course that empowers educators to guide students in building healthy financial habits. Designed for teachers, counselors and school leaders, the course explores financial literacy education topics, including money management skills for students like budgeting, saving, credit use and responsible spending.
Building strong, respectful connections is an essential life skill. The Healthy Relationships course explores how teachers can help students build that skill by fostering emotional awareness, communication and conflict resolution among students. Educators who take this course learn the skills needed to teach students about the essentials of healthy relationships, including mutual respect, trust, honest communication, self-awareness and shared goals.
Preparing students for success includes teaching health skills that empower them to make informed choices. Fresno Pacific University's Skills-Based Health Education course provides educators with the tools to build, teach and assess a comprehensive health program that meets national standards. This course emphasizes life skills in health education, helping students develop critical thinking, decision-making and self-management strategies for lifelong wellness.
Short Stories from American Literature is a professional development course designed for teachers of grades 7-14 where students will read stories by classic and contemporary American authors. The materials also provide a review of the tools for reading, stimulating the development of insight, understanding, and discernment.
This course, designed for teachers of middle school, secondary school, and college level, provides the structure and incentive to read and think about some of the great novels from American fiction. These works have shaped the development of American literature, thought and culture. Teachers will be asked to read two novels selected from a list of 19th and 20th century classics and to respond to their readings in a variety of creative ways.
Learning how to bring children and books together in productive and satisfying experiences is the ultimate goal in this course. You will become more aware of the wealth of available children's literature and will develop skills for selecting literature that is enriching and beneficial for children. Few experiences are so universally enjoyed by children as reading.
This course, designed for teachers of middle and secondary school, provides the structure and incentive to read and think about some of the great novels from British fiction. These works have shaped not only the development of English literature, but also the very nature of thought and culture.
Experience reading outstanding short stories from multiple cultures, including Europe, South America, and Africa. When one reads international authors, one is caught first by the universality of life. Their concerns, experiences and dilemmas are not that different from those of readers and writiers everywhere.
Children naturally love poetry. This course is designed to help teachers gain confidence in teaching poetry--both reading and writing. It introduces rationale, techniques and strategies for sharing poems with children. Teachers will discover the potential of poetry to enrich their classrooms plus practical ideas to inspire and encourage children to enjoy reading and writing poetry themselves.
Looking for a new approach to classic literature? Teaching Shakespeare offers you an opportunity to explore a variety of new, innovative teaching strategies for approaching Shakespeare in the classroom. This online, standards-based course includes special attention to Shakespearean vocabulary, comprehension and fluency, as well as current resources for teaching Shakespeare.
Take advantage of the opportunity to read those American plays that have been on your 'must read' list for too long. This course gives you the chance to discover the value and importance of American drama while equipping you with innovative strategies and activities to make dramatic literature come alive for your students.
Connect with the Holocaust through adolescent fiction and apply strategies to engage the Middle and High School learner with history! One of the most effective pedagogical tools for educating young people about the Holocaust is through literature. By educating young readers about the Holocaust without overwhelming them, we can equip our learners to fight prejudice and discrimination.
Embark on a journey into Jane Austen's world through an engaging exploration of her novels! You will discover more about Austen's lasting impact and her legacy and gain a deeper understanding of the elegant and tumultuous Regency period during which she lived. Discover how the political, cultural, and social framework of the late 18th and early 19th centuries in Britain influenced Austen's novels.
Thor, Robin Hood, Queen Guinevere, Harry Potter - these are just a sample of the iconic characters that we will encounter in this course, heroes and heroines that have shaped literature, inspired debate, and moved society. In this course designed for teachers of middle and high school students, we will investigate 24 essential hero stories, their origins, and their impacts.
This course introduces the central tenets of teaching the whole Multilingual Learner, in the secondary content area classroom, utilizing student's background knowledge to boost language acquisition while meeting content area goals and objectives. This course is written for a secondary content area teacher with a population of MLLs, or ENL teachers servicing students in content area classes.
This course is an introductory course for supporting Multilingual Learners in the mainstream early learning classroom, ages 0-6; written for the general education teacher who has a population of MLLs in their mainstream classes, or for the ENL teacher. This foundational course discusses the similarities and differences of first and second language acquisition, asks students to consider the bilingual/multilingual accessibility of their physical classroom environment & school environment as well as how they utilize and incorporate bilingual helpers in their community.
All students should be supported in school socially & emotionally as they develop through their childhood, yet multilingual learners often have particularly challenging circumstances and/or trauma that can affect the educational experience. This course is for teachers of any content area, K-14, who are interested in improving the social & emotional development of multilingual learners simultaneously while they meet content and language targets.
This course is for the experienced ESL educator and/or content area educator with ESL certification. This course assumes the educator has knowledge of ESL pedagogy, as well as experiences working with a population of immigrant students. The engaging text models integrating story telling with students to improve literacy as well as create connections with language learners, developing an ideal classroom environment to maximize student literacy outcomes.
Discover math Activities for the Primary Grades designed for first through third grade teachers. This course integrates theory and practice, using innovative teaching strategies. Teachers will engage their students in hands-on activities that build mathematical knowledge and demonstrate proficiency. The learning experiences are easily adaptable to meet the various learning styles and needs as well as prepare students for achievement testing.
Learn innovative teaching strategies integrating theory and practice utilizing a variety of high-interest formats. The activities are designed to serve as reviews, diagnostic aids, and remedial teaching tools for teachers who are working with students in grades four, five and six. The learning experiences are easily adaptable to meet the various learning styles and needs as well as prepare students for achievement testing.
Creating a learning environment that supports the development of understanding math concepts for our young learners is as critical as the choice of curriculum expectations. Learn how to encourage and promote understanding so children will learn that mathematics makes sense and is applicable to their everyday needs.
Organizing Learning Environments for Math is designed to offer Preschool, Transitional Kindergarten, and Kindergarten teachers a guide for designing a learning environment that supports the development of understanding math concepts for young learners. If lessons are developed to encourage and promote understanding, children will learn that mathematics makes sense and is applicable to their everyday needs.
Surprise and excite students as they discover mathematics come from real human beings like themselves. Learn how to take the fear and apprehension out of mathematics. The stories behind mathematical discoveries are fascinating but rarely told. When students learn how persons like themselves have discovered and shaped mathematics, their interest and motivation grows. This course examines the lives and work of great mathematicians who lived before 1700.
Explore the stories behind mathematical discoveries which are fascinating but rarely told. When students learn how people like themselves have discovered and shaped mathematics, their interest and motivation grows. Share with students the stories about mathematicians and engage in problems similar to the ones these mathematicians worked with, which opens the door for students to see how mathematics is inter-connected.
Many of us already know that problem solving can be an exciting, exhilarating adventure. Students who have caught this enthusiasm may simply be given a problem and "turned loose" to see what they can find. Others, frustrated by lack of direction or insecure about process, will find the activities in this course guiding them towards success. With just a little help, every student can make some significant discoveries about mathematics.
Through this 100% online professional development course, educators will discover how recreational mathematics is real mathematics but presented in a context that makes it engaging, interesting, and challenging. The regular use of mathematical recreations throughout the school year can serve to convince students that math can be exciting and rewarding.
This course is a standards-based methods course that offers Pre-School and Primary grade teachers a guide for designing a learning experience for their students which focuses on counting, comparing, and patterns. Students choose from over 100 activities that address students individually, in small learning groups, or with whole class experiences. The assignments may be completed with or without classroom student participation.
Faced with teaching first year algebra? This course provides useful ideas, strategies and resources for teachers of first year algebra. The ideas, approaches and strategies in this course should make teaching first year algebra less abstract and more satisfying to both teacher and student. Participants will be asked to read several articles and to experiment with a variety of creative approaches to make algebra concepts more concrete.
Discover how to use hands-on materials, real-world problem-solving and playful activities to support number concepts while introducing students to the building blocks of Algebra. This course will help you extend primary students' experiences with numbers through the use of patterning, number relationships, and graphing.
Do you find it challenging to develop assessment tasks that measure student thinking and understanding? If so, you're not alone. Authentic assessment--the kind that tells us what students know, what they've learned, and how they are relating to the math content--can be one of the keys that unlocks powerful teaching and learning in the classroom.
Investigate virtual pattern blocks, geoboards, function machines and more. This online course will introduce teachers K - 12 to the world of virtual manipulatives. You will compare and contrast virtual manipulatives to traditional manipulatives and discover ways to integrate them into their standards-based mathematics instruction. You will become familiar with current research on the use of computer-based virtual manipulatives in the classroom.
Discover captivating activities, use manipulatives and real-world problem-solving to support number concepts while introducing students to the building blocks of Algebra. This online course will provide you with numerous opportunities to reflect on current research and pedagogy related to algebraic thinking in the intermediate grades. Make direct application to your own classroom through the design and development of lessons that explore growth patterns, tables, variables, and coordinate graphs.
Discover how to support deeper understanding of foundational algebraic concepts in grades 6-8. Teachers will explore growth patterns and functions, variables, linear relationships, and coordinate graphs. Based on the text and research-based journal articles, teachers will design and implement a unit of grade-level appropriate algebraic thinking activities with their students.
This fully online course provides teachers with effective techniques for engaging English language learners, also called multilingual learners, in rigorous mathematics learning. Participants will explore the ways that language proficiency and cultural background can shape mathematics learning and achievement. The course provides strategies for supporting language development and cultural awareness as well as methods to foster a learning environment that encourages participation and engagement.
The activities in this online course will provide you with multiple opportunities to deepen your understanding and apply insights to your own teaching. Designed to provide you with a foundation for using technology to enhance students' mathematics learning in your classroom, participants in this course will examine best practices for technology-based mathematics using dynamic calculators, digital games, virtual manipulatives, interactive online tools, and more.
Discover powerful ways to engage students in mathematics discussion. This online course will explore principles of productive talk and specific techniques that will get your students talking about math. Collaborate with online colleagues as you add useful strategies to your math talk toolkit. All of the readings and activities are built upon the Common Core standards. Teachers may complete this course with or without students.
Discover how to engage your students in the Common Core Standards for Mathematical Practice. In this course, you will explore specific strategies for developing mathematically proficient students who reason, apply mathematics to problems and communicate precisely about their thinking. Opportunities for online collaboration and resource sharing make this course a powerful vehicle for professional growth and classroom change.
Social justice awareness can be utilized in lessons in the classroom. This online course will introduce you to specific strategies for engaging students in mathematics lessons and activities built around social justice issues, such as healthy eating, living wages around the world, access to clean water or fair trade.
The goal of this online course is to introduce you to strategies to enrich your students critical thinking skills by engaging in meaningful problem solving using rich mathematical tasks. The eight Common Core Standards for Mathematical Practice require students to think critically as they apply their skills and knowledge to mathematical situations. Rich tasks present students with the opportunity to conjecture and reason, explore and model, collaborate and communicate about mathematical thinking.
Do your students struggle with math facts? Are you looking for practical methods that go beyond memorization? This online course will introduce you to number talks, a classroom routine that engages students in the use of strategies that support number flexibility and fluency. During number talks, students explore and discuss number structure and relationships for mentally calculating addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, fractions, percents and decimals.
Students bring a rich variety of cultural backgrounds and identities to classroom learning. Research suggests that teachers who value student culture and experience are better able to foster academic success, cultural competence, critical citizenship, and caring relationships. Culturally responsive mathematics is a pedagogy that seeks to energize the relationship between students' home and community culture and classroom mathematics learning.
Integrating the arts into mathematics learning allows students to experiment with shape and form, investigate abstract concepts with concrete materials, and approach problems from multiple perspectives. Students realize that mathematics can help them order and understand the natural world. At the same time, art invites students to participate in the creative playfulness and aesthetic expression so often missing in classroom mathematics.
Remote technologies that connect people have expanded the ways we teach and learn. Many schools are embracing digitized education through blended and online offerings. With a higher prevalence of remote learning, it's increasingly important for educators to develop pedagogical approaches that maximize benefits for online learners.
Routines help us develop healthy daily habits, math classrooms establish routines for lectures and homework, fewer offer specific daily routines to help students think, communicate, and reason like mathematicians. If your students struggle to get started on mathematical tasks or if they rely on teacher examples in order to 'do problems', this course offers an exciting set of practices to foster confident mathematical thinking.
Great math instruction needs more than a good explanation on the board. The Desmos in the Math Classroom course is designed for educators who want new, interactive approaches to teaching students math through discussion and real-time problem-solving. In this professional development course in math, educators explore Desmos tools and classroom reminders they can use right away. These include the graphing calculator, ready-made activities and features that support pacing and collaboration.
Understanding Geometry, 'Big Ideas' is a course designed for Preschool, TK, K-3rd grade educators that provides a variety of classroom-tested activities to promote in-depth understanding of 2-D and 3-D geometry concepts and spatial awareness. Participants will learn many practical strategies and approaches to develop spatial reasoning, recognition of shapes, and real-world connections in a fun and engaging manner.
Transform your classroom with 14 evidence-based teaching techniques to optimize student thinking. This course explores the principles and practices outlined in Peter Liljedahl's Building Thinking Classrooms in Mathematics-a teaching framework developed over fifteen years of research in more than 400 classrooms. Math teachers are inundated with ideas about what works in the classroom. Liljedahl put teaching strategies to the test, identifying the moves that genuinely foster student learning.
Explore the National Core Arts Standards as a guide to provide quality arts education in your classroom! Go beyond the surface of dance and music to teach your students grade-appropriate theory in this non-intimidating class! Utilizing the NCCAS's resources, videos, and lessons, you will know how to gauge proficiency in the Creating, Performing, Responding processes.
Music has a phenomenal power to move, transport, and delight us. Across numerous styles and forms, great music expresses the inexpressible, speaks across time and cultures, and galvanizes audiences across the world. And the more we understand about music, the more we appreciate it, and a knowledge of music theory is the best place to start.
Welcome to a course introducing you to the 'new' field of music and the brain. Learn about the relationship between music and emotion; the different ways music expresses emotion, different ways music can evoke emotion in listeners' brains, and how those relate to music's ability to communicate cross-culturally. The course explores how perception of musical sounds involves complex mental processing, and how implicit learning gives rise to powerful expectations that shape your perception of and your emotional responses to music.
Rock n' Roll originated in the US in the 1950s and is rooted in Blues and Country Western music. This course takes a deep dive into rock n' roll and its effect on social changes. Students will take an intense look at the early artists of rock n' roll, the influences that shaped the music, and how the world was influenced by its sound.
The Teaching Golf course will prepare you to teach golf to yourself, small groups and your entire class. Participants in the course will learn to create an effective golf curriculum or program for teachers and coaches. Although golf is a game of physical skill, it is also one of the more mentally demanding sports.
The Teaching Elementary Physical Education course will allow educators to enhance even the best elementary grades physical education programs. Students enrolled in the graduate-level course will learn about many introductory and fitness activities, along with numerous lead-up and lesson-focus games that they can incorporate into their curriculum. The course starts with physical education goals and objectives, leading participants through such innovative topics as movement learning, curriculum planning, class management and legal liability.
Studies have shown that exercise can benefit everyone in various ways, physically, mentally, and even creatively. By offering a quality curriculum with a spark of enthusiasm, you can kindle an interest in almost any sport! In this course, we will be focusing on volleyball, basketball and racquetball.
Walking for Fitness is an online professional development course that is designed to stress the importance of cardiovascular, muscular and mental fitness development for maintaining a healthy lifestyle for you and your students. The course will help teachers and administrators acquire the knowledge, skills, and attitudes necessary for physical fitness through participation in a carefully monitored walking program.
Whether you teach physical education, math, science, writing, history or any number of subjects, this course will help you to motivate your students to accomplish tasks as they are set before them. How many times have you heard a student complain about how running a mile, writing a research report or mastering algebraic problems will ever apply to life beyond school?
Teaching Tennis is designed to build the skills and knowledge needed to effectively teach tennis is class or small group situation. The course consists of a textbook plus website reading assignments, skill development exercises, lesson plan development, and coaching techniques. Course assignments encourage participants to integrate specific national standards for physical education.
Elementary physical education can do more than build fitness. It can build curiosity, connection, and classroom community through games for elementary students that invite cooperation and fun. The Elementary Sports: Games From Around the World course explores kids' games from around the world and the cultural stories behind them.
Physical fitness, being outside, and developing a well-rounded education supports cognitive, social, emotional, and physical development. Physical fitness through team sports helps create lifelong well-being and good health habits. In Teaching Outdoor Team Sports, educators learn the techniques and structure required for building quality outdoor team sports activities.
The Teaching Individual Sports course teaches educators the best practices for building quality individual sports units that encourage participation in regular physical activity for life-long fitness. Teachers completing the course earn professional development credit while exploring the history of sports, practice routines, strategies, rules, sport-specific physical conditioning exercises and selecting proper attire and equipment.
Teachers will be provided a wealth of information and practical activities for movement-supported learning. Educators will earn 3 graduate-level PD units. Take up to one year to complete this online course!
Develop an understanding of Kelly and Melograno's Achievement Based Curriculum (ABC) for creating or revising physical education curriculum. The ABC model is used to develop, revise and implement K-12 standards-based physical education curricula. This course is designed to satisfy The Society of Health and Physical Educators (SHAPE) National Standards and Grade-Level for K-12 Physical Education and various State standards for physical education.
Examine the history of games, play, sport and physical education using a chronological approach to discover their connection to Western thought and culture. The course takes a constructivist approach that is based on scholarly research using both primary and secondary sources, yet is made relevant, applicable and practical by being project-centered.
Physical education has been undergoing significant changes and improvements in how it is perceived in academia and its place and how it is taught in those institutions. The importance of physical education in school curriculum is increasing as the public values fitness more, and in turn, how it is taught has also evolved.
Technology has become an infusive and pervasive presence in most aspects of today's culture; at home, at work, in the classroom, and on the athletic field. Technology has provided teachers and coaches with new tools and has opened up whole worlds of new possibilities for teaching, learning, coaching and managing competitions.
Badminton is an increasingly popular game for all ages from 8 to 80. Because it can be vigorous, is inexpensive, and easy to learn it is appearing in physical education curriculum as a life-long sport. Badminton incorporates fitness, psychological skills, techniques, and tactics. The course will provide information and structure required to build quality badminton units that encourage participation in regular physical activity for lifelong fitness.
Learn how to transition your teacher-focused classes to become student-centered by using Mosston's Spectrum of Teaching Styles. The Spectrum of Teaching Styles moves from the Command (Style A), where the teacher makes all the decisions to Self-Teach (Style K) where the student makes all the decisions.
The Teaching Disc Golf course is designed to give educators the skills needed to effectively teach disc golf to a class or in a small group setting. Educators learn how to teach others to play disc golf, including the disc golf rules and the proper disc golf equipment needed to play the game.
Pickleball is an increasingly popular game for all ages from 8 to 80. Because it can be vigorous, is inexpensive, and easy to learn it is appearing in physical education curriculum as a life-long sport. Pickleball incorporates fitness, psychological skills, techniques, and tactics. The course will provide information and structure required to build quality pickleball units that encourage participation in regular physical activity for lifelong fitness.
Lacrosse is a very old sport, originating with indigenous people of North America as early as 1100 AD. Lacrosse has recently been increasing in popularity at scholastic, collegiate and club levels and is expected to be included in the 2028 Olympic Games. The game of lacrosse incorporates fitness, psychological skills, techniques, and tactics.
Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) is an integral part of education and human development. SEL is helpful to both children and adults, increasing self-awareness, academic achievement, and positive behaviors both in and out of the classroom. It is the process through which children and adults: Understand and manage emotions, etc.
Teaching Lifetime Fitness covers applied information regarding components of physical fitness, exercise planning and behavioral changes to improve personal fitness and promote lifetime activity. You will learn content and strategies for helping your students assess their current levels of fitness, identify areas of improvement as well as understand and apply SMART goals to their fitness program.
This course is designed to support teachers in the vast ways in which to integrate content standards into physical activities. The Physical Education classroom provides many opportunities to reinforce core content and cross curricular activities and concepts. The key is to find creative ways to reinforce the core material while keeping true to the goals and standards related to developing lifelong movers.
People often feel intimidated by the wilderness. Unique training is required to successfully provide for our needs without the aid of modern conveniences. Yet, the wilderness invites us to enjoy a lifetime of challenge, rest, and rejuvenation within its boundaries. This course is designed to equip teachers to teach students how to 'maintain meaningful physical activity throughout their lifetimes' by engaging in wilderness adventures.
Unlock the vibrant world of dance in this exciting course that blends movement, creativity, and culture. Dive into a variety of dance styles--hip hop, jazz, contemporary, cultural, and social--while building your strength, flexibility, and coordination. Learn how rhythm, music, and teamwork can inspire creativity and foster connection.
This course equips K-12 educators with the knowledge and practical skills needed to create inclusive physical education environments and Unified Sports opportunities for students with disabilities. Participants will explore strategies for adapting instruction, modifying equipment, integrating Universal Design for Learning (UDL), and supporting a wide range of physical, cognitive, and social-emotional needs.
Explore plant life available on your school site and in the community to enrich your science programs. This ONLINE, 'hands-on' activity-based curriculum aligns with the California State Science Framework for grades K-12. You will be conducting and evaluating experiments with your students. Learn how to demonstrate making science learning relevant to daily life.
Explore animal life available on your school site with this Online course. Topics of this class include insects, birds, pets, mammals, spiders, etc. You will receive easy-to-follow directions to help make an ant farm or insect collection. Participate in a planned series of experiments/experiences with your students. This 'hands-on' activity-based curriculum aligns with the California State Science Framework for grades K-12.
Explore how the study of the human body can be used to enrich your science programs with this Online course. Complete and evaluate a planned series of experiments dealing with the five senses, circulatory and respiratory systems, and related topics. This 'hands-on' activity-based curriculum aligns with the California State Science Framework for grades K-12.
Explore topics of earth science available in the classroom, school site and in the community to enrich your science program with this course. Topics covered include (1) experiments that deal with rock, minerals, soil, volcanoes, rivers, caves and erosion; and (2) easy-to-follow, hands-on ideas and some suggestions on how to effectively use the personnel at the school site and in the community.
Discover how to construct a cell, and learn about mitosis, meiosis, genetics, cells, and the parts of the cell. Apply this information to your everyday life in a meaningful way through the hands-on experiences provided. This standards-based course is designed to bring the materials of science into the K-12 classroom in a new and innovative manner. Explore many resources that will enhance the study of cells and genetics.
Enrich your Science programs by discovering ways to teach the study of Biology with emphasis on the systems of the body. You will be required to complete and evaluate a planned series of experiments/experiences with your students. This curriculum aligns with the California State and National Standards. Use experiments/experiences with children in the classroom, home or neighborhood.
Discover the many facets of weather-water problems that exist in most communities. You will have the opportunity to complete and evaluate a planned series of experiments/experiences with your students. You will learn lessons which you can use in the classroom, home or neighborhood. This 'hands-on' activity-based curriculum aligns with the California State Science Framework for grades K-12.
Enrich your science program with this K-12 methods course, designed to explore matter and energy. Topics include journaling; the study of matter; how light, heat, sound and electricity are used as energy sources. Study how food provides energy; how the five senses develop an understanding of matter and the states of matter.
Explore the major events in the history of astronomy as you journey through our solar system through readings, media presentations, and observations. The goal of this course is to expand your understanding of the night sky through active investigations. Examine and apply the Next Generation Science Standards, as well as the connections between the NGSS and the Common Core, as you develop lessons and activities to enrich your science curriculum.
This methods course has an emphasis on pollution for grades K-12. It is an activity-based, integrated unit which addresses real-life issues that directly affect the communities in which we live. Covered in this course are population growth, air quality, water quality, and land-use issues affecting our communities now and in the future.
Discover the vastness of our universe as you learn about celestial objects such as galaxies, black holes, stars and nebula. Explore deep space and intergalactic activities through media and resources found on the Internet. Examine and apply the Next Generation Science Standards, as well as the connections between the NGSS and the Common Core, as you develop lessons and activities to enrich your science curriculum.
Entomology is the study of insects, the most abundant form of animal life on earth. Many insects are easily maintained in the classroom and can thrive despite being handled and kept in captivity. Insects can be used to model many scientific principles. Additionally, you'll find a variety of potential cross-curricular activities with insects that connect science with art, math, language arts and social studies.
Laboratory exercises are a wonderful way to explore and experience science. Using a project-based approach, students will learn about and experience the use of virtual science labs suitable for use in their classroom. Each project is directly tied to specific National Educational Technology Standards. The course will provide participants with a survey of what types of virtual science labs are possible, then using computer and Internet technology, students will develop meaningful lessons centered around virtual science labs.
Fresno Pacific's Life in the World's Oceans course offers an in-depth exploration into the science and mysteries of Earth's most significant feature and the life within. With stunning visuals and the expertise of Sean Todd, professor and marine researcher, The Great Courses and FPU's Life in the World's Oceans course combines your love of learning and teaching marine science with practical tools you can use in your classroom immediately.
No place on Earth is safe from severe storms. Tour the world's wildest weather-and learn how to protect yourself-with a storm-chasing, prize-winning meteorologist. By delving into Science of Extreme Weather that underlies blizzards, flash floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, heat waves, and more, you'll come away with newfound appreciation and respect for the atmosphere's most awe-inspiring phenomena.
Geology and the earth science have now become core curricular topics for the new generation of integrated science standards. Yet, the principles of the earth sciences-ideas that deal with vast stretches of both landscape and time-are hard for our minds to grasp. Many teachers continue to feel underprepared to teach these topics and seek to bolster their understanding of the earth sciences.
You are invited into the uniquely satisfying world of plants, and the joy of celebrating and learning from the secrets of living nature. With almost 400,000 known species and thousands more identified every year, the variety of plant life is almost overwhelming--from the microscopic to the largest organism on Earth. During your journey, you will explore the astonishing adaptations that allow plants to live in an enormous variety of ecosystems, from deserts and the ocean floor to thousands of feet above sea level and on every continent.
Our bodies are incredible, supporting and moving us effortlessly every day. They allow us to walk, run, sit, and stand with little thought-yet they are also vulnerable to injury, aging, and disease. This intricate system of bones, muscles, and tendons varies from person to person, making it a fascinating subject of study. Understanding its structure enhances both medical knowledge and personal well-being.
In this course you will be provided with an overview of the most common disabilities found in private and public schools: learning disabilities, other health impairments - AD/HD, asthma, diabetes and Tourette's syndrome - along with autism and speech and language disorders. The course will also provide insights to executive functioning and the impact on social skill development.
Students learn about the identification process under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, including the identification of children in private schools. Students learn how to read a psycho-educational report and how to write SMART individualized education plans, individualized service plans, individualized transition plans, and individualized family service plans.
This course assists teachers in modifying sports, games, and physical activities to make them appropriate for a person with a disability. There is a curriculum guide which evolved to assist teachers to effectively include students with disabilities in the least restrictive physical education program. Teachers will be directed to a site that links to current websites and a PDF file of a curriculum guide for adapted PE to complete the coursework.
Candidates will demonstrate in-depth understanding of students' and parents' legal rights and responsibilities regarding special education. Federal laws regarding special education and state laws specific to each student will be discussed. The Council for Exceptional Children's Code of Ethics will be examined and discussed.
Cultural Reciprocity Special Education Course is an online independent study course where students will learn about building family-professional relationships. Students will discover how special education is a culture in and of itself while understanding how special education law is in cultural conflict with specific minority groups, e.g. Asian, Hispanic, Native American.
This course provides an overview of Response to Intervention (RTI) and its role in identifying challenging behaviors and at-risk students. It covers RTI education, including its history, legal framework and the three tiers of RTI: whole class, small group and intensive interventions. The course also introduces Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS), a framework supporting all learners through academic, social, emotional and behavioral services.
This course provides students with the opportunity to reflect upon their own values of including children with disabilities in their schools and in their classrooms. The course provides discussion on the differences between inclusion and belonging. Students will discuss the challenges in providing inclusive education while developing a strategic plan to move their schools and classrooms to a culture of belonging.
Students learn about the identification process under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act known as child find including the identification of children in private schools. Students learn how to read a psycho-educational report and how to write SMART individualized education plans, individualized service plans, individualized transition plans, and individualized family service plans.
This course explores what individuals with special needs in our communities can teach us. Course participants will learn the Categories of Disability along with a Biblical perspective on disability. This course will utilize the text, Adam, God's Beloved, by Henri J.M. Nouwen. It tells the story of Adam, who could not speak nor move without assistance. Nouwen befriended Adam and the spiritual lessons Adam taught him.
This course provides an overview of four low-incidence disabilities, a severe disabling condition with an expected incidence rate of less than one percent of total statewide enrollment in special education. Students will learn the law, and four low incidence disabilities, Orthopedic Impairment (OI), Deaf and Hard of Hearing (DHH), Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), and Complex Health Issues (CHI).
This course is designed as a 'bridge' option for current Mild to Moderate Education Specialists or Moderate to Severe Education Specialists to demonstrate competence on Teacher Performance Expectations embedded in the new Education Specialist Credentials that were launched Summer/Fall 2022. The Office of Administrative Law (OAL) approved the package and several updates to the Education Specialist Credential went into effect on July 1, 2022.
This course provides an overview of the executive functioning skills and their importance in the classroom setting. Course participants will learn how to support students' growth in the executive functioning skills, including but not limited to, organization and planning, task initiation, and self-monitoring. Elements of behavior support plans, including data collection, replacement behaviors, and goal writing to support students' behavioral needs throughout the school day are also covered in this course.
This course is designed as a basic overview of the knowledge and skills required to effectively participate as a member of a collaborative team working with children who have exceptional needs. Members of the collaborative teams include teachers, para-educators, school staff, related service providers, administrators, the child, and the child's peers. Students will learn essential skills, teaching strategies, personal safety, and confidentiality requirements.
This course is designed as a 'bridge' option for current Early Childhood Special Educators to demonstrate competence on Teacher Performance Expectations embedded in the new Education Specialist Credentials that were launched Summer/Fall 2022. The Office of Administrative Law (OAL) approved the package and several updates to the Education Specialist Credential went into effect on July 1, 2022.
This course provides an opportunity to learn about autism spectrum disorders. Students study in-depth psychological, sociological, and vocational aspects of programs designed to serve this population of children. The course also addresses the basic concepts in autism research and education that are foundational in understanding the patterns of behavior, social abilities, and language difficulties that unfold in students with autism spectrum disorders.
Students will learn about low-, mid-, and high-tech assistive technology that helps to address students' unique learning needs so they may find success in their learning environment. Students will learn to use a variety of assistive technology and receive an introduction and overview of augmentative and alternative communication devices that support language development for students with limited verbal ability.
This course provides an overview of the characteristics of sensory disabilities; Physical, Visual, Hearing, & Deaf-Blindness. The course will prepare students to address and support individuals in their assigned classroom(s) and environmental settings. Students will learn foundational knowledge, strategies, and appropriate supports to facilitate instruction, to achieve student success.
Move beyond surface-level strategies and explore ADHD through a practical, classroom-ready lens in this fully self-paced professional learning course for K-12 educators. Participants will examine how attention, behavior, and executive functioning impact learning in authentic classroom environments and gain research-based approaches that can be implemented immediately.
This course explores the rich history of the Southern Mother Lode during the California Gold Rush, focusing on key locations such as Mariposa, Agua Fria, Hornitos, and La Grange. Designed for educators, the course enhances social science teaching skills by integrating historical content with digital tools, including Weebly, TimeGraphics, Pinterest, Diigo, and Google Earth.
Become more knowledgeable about California's Gold Rush and the impact it had on California's history. In this online course, you will learn about Native Americans and settlers in the Gold Rush areas. You will gain a deeper understanding of labor-intensive mining and capital-intensive mining in Coloma, Grass Valley, and Nevada City. Through video tours you will visit the James Marshall Gold Discovery Site, The Empire Mine, and the North Star Mine Powerhouse.
Gain a deeper understanding of the importance Monterey had in the establishment of California as a state. In this online course, you will learn about the Rumsen Indians, the settlement of Alta California, the Carmel Mission, and the effects of the Gold Rush on Monterey. You will understand why Monterey was considered the capital through many periods in history, including the period of the first California Constitutional Convention.
This course explores various periods in the history of Los Angeles. Experts will discuss Mission San Gabriel, Southwest Indians, the Southwest Museum, George C. Page Museum and the La Brea Tar Pits, and El Pueblo De Los Angeles. Biographical information on significant people in the history of Los Angeles will be used to teach the idea of exploring history through biographies.
This online course is designed to help students become more knowledgeable about Sacramento, California's rich history. Through this course, students will not only learn about Sacramento's history, but will understand how to enhance their social studies curriculum with high quality technological applications. They will recognize how Sacramento became the metropolis it is today through the study of Native American Indians, Sutter's Fort, Old Town Sacramento, the Gold Rush, the Big Four, Theodore Judah, The Port of Sacramento, and Sacramento's growth over the years.
California Missions 1769 - Secularization is designed to help teachers learn about the California Missions Period. Through oral interviews, videos, and readings, teachers will become more familiar with important aspects of the Mission Period, including reasons Spain founded the missions, founding fathers of the mission, lure and treatment Native Americans at the missions, mission music, economics, architecture, religion, trades taught at the missions, restoration, and archaeology.
This course is designed primarily to introduce teachers to Dr. J.S. Holliday's study of past and present relationships which led him to conclude that California's present-day image as a "risk-taking society" is the result of its formative years, especially those years during the Gold Rush and the 1860s through the 1880s.
This course serves as an introduction to the history of the use and preservation of the National Parks Service from its inception in 1916. Through the text, videos, and the myriad of resources offered on the Internet, students will gain insight and knowledge into the National Parks rich heritage and the issues surrounding the Park Service.
The study of the ancient Greek world is foundational to discovering who we are today. Western Civilization, and indeed the world, owes much to the innovations developed by the ancient Greeks. Learning about their ideas concerning philosophy, government, drama, athletic competition, medicine, astronomy, military strategy, architecture, and art will explain much about our own history and ways of seeing the world.
Discover why Boston became the center of much patriot activity that moved England's American colonies toward revolution and independence. The American Revolution began in the Boston area and was fed by the fervor of its citizens. Many of the most sacred sites of early American history are found in or near this remarkable city. You will explore the ideas, events and people of the Boston area that provided direction for the new American nation.
Have you ever wondered about how your country, state, and county came to be? This K-12 methods course will direct you to many sources that will help you answer this question and countless others to which your students will seek to find answers. You will have a lot of fun learning about who we are and from where we came in this vast Earth.
This course will explore the ideas and way of life followed by many early colonists in New England. It was a society and culture that detractors mockingly called 'Puritan' and which has had a profound influence on American life and thought to the present. Learn what drove thousands of Puritan English settlers to seek refuge in the wilderness of New England where thy sought to establish a model Christian society - a 'city on a hill' for the world to see.
Explore how the study of Social Studies - Map Skills is important to our lives with this ONLINE course. You will learn about global connections, how to use maps and other geographic representations, tools and technologies to acquire, process and report information. The participants are required to complete and evaluate a planned series of lessons and/or experiences with their students.
Designed to take the educator back in time, this course puts you on the road with the legendary, Samuel Clemens aka Mark Twain. Samuel Clemens may have been born in Missouri but Mark Twain was born in the West. Christened with the name Mark Twain in Virginia City, Clemens used it out of necessity when his writing became offensive to the targets of his writing. You are taken through Clemens' years in the West and will experience the context within which this author created many of his most profound literary contributions.
Engage in an overview and details of the Civil Rights Movement in the United States during the 1950's and 1960's that grew out of decades, if not centuries, of discrimination and humiliation experienced by Black Americans. Galvanized by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and others, Black Americans and other minority groups who underwent struggles of their own brought national and international attention to racial injustice in this country and helped turn America in a new direction of living up to its creed of equality for all.
This online course will explore the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and the Constitution of the United States. Historical contexts, personalities, and debates in the development of these documents will be studied. The contents, implications, and changing roles of these documents throughout our history will be examined, incuding present-day impact on American life.
The greatest crisis facing the United States since independence was the secession of eleven southern slave states determined to create a separate nation based on the perpetuation of human slavery. Elected president of the United States in 1960, it fell to Abraham Lincoln to manage this crisis, wage war to preserve the Union of states as one nation, not two, and ultimately to end the enslavement of nearly four million Americans.
Trace the history and study the development of American slavery from early colonial times to the end of the Civil War. The profound impact of slavery on the development of American social, political and economic life will be explored, as well as the moral debate generated by the existence of slavery in a nation whose founders professed that 'all men are created equal.'
Discover how a small village of hills near the Italian coast grew to dominate the Mediterranean world and become the center of the strongest empire in Europe, North Africa, and Western Asia. Designed to cover national social studies standards for this content area, the course will help you understand how much we, as part of Western Civilization, owe to the ancient Romans.
Explore the multi-ethnic heritage of the United States, providing valuable insights through the experiences of earlier generations who came to this land as 'new' American and the reactions they generated from those already here. The trials and triumphs of those coming to America is often a story of painful discrimination and injustice and yet probably no nation in human history has given more opportunity to strangers.
his course delves into the major discoveries, influential theories and prominent figures of the Scientific Revolution in Europe during the 16th to 18th centuries. It will explore the profound impact of the period, the important scientific discoveries of the time and the tensions they created with traditional religious and cultural beliefs.
Explore the development of the American Presidency from its Constitutional beginnings in 1787 through the development of political parties, primary elections and modern media-centered campaigning. Discover who the key individuals were and their strengths, weaknesses and contributions to the office that have helped make the presidency the most powerful political position in the world.
Explore the Great Depression, the single most important economic event of the 20th Century. Attention will be given to the causes, events, policies, movements, personalities, and human tragedy and triumph of this era through an interdisciplinary historical perspective that will examine economic, political, psychological, and sociological aspects of the greatest economic crisis ever faced by the United States.
The game of baseball is an integral part of American culture from its origins to the present day. Participants develop an understanding of our national past-time and discover how the game is a reflection of America. The course evaluates culture and connects the game to the classroom curriculum units and Common Core Standards. Baseball as American Culture includes a travel option to visit the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY.
This course examines the remarkable life of Benjamin Franklin with an emphasis upon his impact on the city of Philadelphia, PA. It is a Social Studies course that studies Franklin's relentless drive to improve both his life and the life of others. His intense curiosity, practicality, combined with humor continues to inspire all of us today. The course offers opportunities for participants to develop curriculum lessons, field trips and projects about Franklin.
Examine various government systems and political ideologies from around the world. The governments and political systems of six countries will be used as case studies: the United Kingdom, China, Iran, Russia, Mexico, and Nigeria. Emphasis will be placed on each country's government structure, economic system, elections, political parties, sources of tension, social movements, and current policy challenges.
Examine the major religions of the world, including Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism. Emphasis will be placed on each religion's origins, historical development, central doctrines, and important rituals in order to locate the similarities and differences between each faith. Additional focus will be placed on the role of religion in American history and in today's global community.
Explore the structure and functions of the United State government's three policymaking institutions: the legislative, executive, and judicial branches. Focus is placed on the role of each branch in developing public policy and on exploring the checks and balances that are intended to limit each institution. Students will also develop skills to effectively teach this topic in the classroom and align lessons to teaching, Common Core, and content standards.
Survey the structure and functions of the American electoral process with an emphasis on public opinion, citizen participation, ideology, interest groups, the media, political parties, campaigns, and elections. Teachers will also learn how to implement these concepts in the classroom.
How were 120,000 Japanese Americans forcibly relocated simply for 'looking like the enemy?' In this course, students will gain a deeper understanding of the impact the attack on Pearl Harbor had on the lives of Japanese living in Western America. You will learn about the Japanese Internment Camps established after that fateful day in 1941. You will expand your understanding of life in the camps, including daily tasks like eating and using the bathroom, housing conditions, and how people occupied their time while incarcerated.
The American West history course offers an in-depth exploration into the truth about westward expansion and the American frontier, offering both the grit and grandeur of this epic time and place in American history. With stunning storytelling and visuals from The Great Courses, FPU's American West History course combines your love of learning and history with practical teaching tools you can use in your classroom immediately. Assignments address the National Board of Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) for History.
America stands at a dramatic crossroads: Mega banks and corporations wield disturbing power; huge income gap between the top 1% and the other 99% grows visibly wider; astounding new technologies are changing American lives; conflicts over U.S. military interventionism, and the environment and immigration dominate public debate. Sound like today's headlines? You might be surprised to know that these headlines were from newspapers over 100 years ago.
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is America's premier intelligence organization, charged with keeping constant watch in an increasingly dangerous and unstable world. Some critics have accused it of not doing enough to protect US national security. In the view of others, it has done too much, intervening excessively overseas and threatening civil liberties at home. Are these criticisms of the CIA justified? The aim of this course is to give you the information you need to decide for yourself.
We owe so much of our modern world to the Industrial Revolution. The lights that illuminate our homes, the cars that carry us to work, the computers that help drive our economy, and the appliances that make our lives easier-these technologies exist thanks to a remarkable group of scientists and entrepreneurs who, over the past 250 years, have transformed virtually every aspect of our lives and fueled one of the greatest periods of innovation in history.
In more ways than you can imagine, today's geopolitical climate is a product of World War II. The United States, France, Germany, Russia, and Britain-all of these world powers and their sense of place today were profoundly shaped by the most savage, sweeping war in human history. How was the war in Europe fought over the course of seven long, arduous years? What led to Germany's early sustained gains, and what eventually stymied its advances?
The Japanese attack on the United States Battle Fleet stationed at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, socked most Americans. While the attack was a tactical success for Japan, it was also one of the most reckless strategic decisions in the history of warfare, for it awakened a sleeping giant and triggered some of the most harrowing and ferocious military actions the world had ever seen. For the United States, the war started and ended in the Pacific Theater, with the war against Japan.
As a political epicenter, Washington DC is a major national and international crossroads and featured in the global news on a daily basis. But beyond the glamour and glare of high-profile politics, it is a city on par with some of the greatest in the world, brimming over with remarkable history and culture, and offering a multitude of unforgettable sights and experiences. Throughout this capital city, you'll find some of the world's most beautiful and extraordinary national monuments.
In Pirates: The Real History, you'll find yourself looking at world history from a new point of view, realizing that much of what you've learned before could-and possibly should-be viewed through a more accurate, post-imperialistic filter. You will be exposed to new ways of thinking about global interactions, from the West Indies and the Red Sea to the North Atlantic and Indonesia, and beyond.
In War in the Modern World, we will examine modern conflicts, exploring decades of violence between and within nation-states. We will define insurgency and counterinsurgency warfare as well as the strategies that underlie both. You will learn about the weapons that fundamentally changed how countries and rebel groups fight. And you will understand how highly localized civil and insurgent conflicts became the new terrains on which great powers wage war.
World War II: Up Close and Personal invites educators to step into the shoes of those who lived through one of history's most pivotal conflicts. What was it like to grow up in Nazi Germany-or survive as a Jewish child in the Warsaw Ghetto? How did soldiers, sailors, pilots, and war correspondents experience the war firsthand? Through compelling lectures, documentary footage, and powerful video testimonies, you'll explore the human side of WWII.
Through this course, educators will explore the rationale and specific strategies for selecting, planning, implementing, and assessing lessons that develop the disciplines of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) in their students. This course will introduce teachers to an interdisciplinary approach to learning that engages students in relevant, rigorous, real-world, STEM-focused problem-solving.
Spark curiosity and creativity with coding in your classroom! Coding goes beyond writing computer instructions; it's a mindset that fosters ingenuity, logical reasoning, and systematic problem solving, making it a valuable skill in all areas of life. This course empowers K-12 educators to teach coding fundamentals and seamlessly integrate them into their curriculum.
A makerspace is an area or areas where students come to explore, build, create, and tinker. Tinkering is an iterative process in which students question, explore, experiment, and evaluate their progress toward a specific goal. A makerspace may look different in different classrooms and the area may include different materials throughout the year.
This course offers educators the opportunity to learn the best practices for SketchUp for Schools, a free version of the software that allows users to do 3D modeling in a 2D environment. Educators learn the best strategies for engaging students and supporting their use of 3D modeling for creative expression and skill development.
Today's app-enabled robots are more user-friendly than ever, geared towards learners of all ages and levels of experience. Robotics learning develops 21st century STEM skills including coding and engineering as students engage in play, innovation, creativity, critical thinking, problem solving, and collaboration.
Think Like an Engineer is a hands-on course designed for you to learn and apply engineering practice in the classroom for your students. STEM is a national program aiming to produce qualified students pursuing science, technology, engineering, and math occupations. Engineers are tasked with drawing upon their creative powers to develop quicker, better, and less expensive ways to do what needs to be done.
Scratch is a free, easy-to-learn computer programming platform that enables users of all ages and abilities to design creative projects. Using brightly colored drag-and-drop blocks, Scratchers can construct games, animate stories, illustrate simulations, and more.
STEAM is an educational approach that integrates science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics through project-based, interdisciplinary learning. Drawing on design principles and art practices, STEAM adds to the strengths of STEM learning through increased opportunities for critical inquiry, collaborative exploration, creative design, adaptable problem solving, and real-world application.
Data compile every second of the day. These "big data" can be used to better understand and constructively shape the world around us. The top emerging jobs will require professionals to understand how to locate, analyze, and leverage data. Data competence is now an essential life skill. This course serves as an accessible introduction to data literacy in the classroom.
The Good News: Your school district purchased a 3D printer for your classroom. The Bad News: Training wasn't included. 3D printing technology has great potential in educational environments as course subjects can be brought to life. This equips the students with practical (and very valuable) real-life experience.
This course offers educators the opportunity to learn the best practices for Teaching With Tinkercad, a free collection of online software tools. By learning Tinkercad for teachers, educators can use tools to create 3D digital designs ready for 3D printing or incorporation into projects. It integrates with Google/Tinkercad Classroom and is 100% cloud-based, meaning it operates on any device that can run a web browser, including Chromebooks and iPads.
Combine sculpting, art, and electrical circuits for kinesthetic STEM learning! Squishy Circuits use LEDs, motors, switches, and buzzers to animate figures sculpted from dough that can be easily made with ingredients at home. Even young learners can use Squishy Circuits to explore concepts like conductivity and resistance, open and closed circuits, series and parallel circuits, and electrical load.
Grow your students' love of learning with a school garden! School gardening cultivates patience, responsibility, and collaboration as students sow and nurture their crops. Students who grow their own food are more likely to appreciate a variety of fruits and vegetables. Gardens expand the walls of the classroom, providing rich opportunities for hands-on learning in science, technology, mathematics, social studies, ELA, nutrition, and the arts.
History is made not only by kings, queens, presidents, and generals, but equally by inventors and the technological powers they unleash. This course explores the inventions that have changed the world- from prehistoric times to the 21st century. Along with recounting famous inventions, such as the steam engine, airplane, atomic bomb, computer chip, and internet these lectures explore a number of surprising innovations, including beer, pagodas, indoor plumbing, and department stores.
Microsoft Word remains one of the most versatile tools for creating, editing, and sharing written content. In Word: The Ultimate Writing Tool, educators explore how to use this powerful program to streamline their workflow, enhance instructional materials, and improve student learning experiences. This course highlights practical applications of Word for educators, from designing engaging handouts and templates to using advanced formatting, tables, and graphics.
We live in the information age. Without knowledge of special tools, the sheer volume of data and information constantly bombarding us would overwhelm our efforts to make sense of the firehose of information coming at us in all directions. Excel is the Swiss army knife of information management. You can calculate grades, transform raw data into meaningful information, or create school-wide planning templates with Excel.
The design of this course is to teach the participant how to make powerful electronic presentations using Microsoft PowerPoint. Whether making a classroom lecture, board presentation, committee update, or a student report, this course will equip the participant to present content with a professional appearance using a minimal amount of effort.
Tailored for the computer novice, this newly updated course provides the background, concepts and basic skills needed to become a productive and confident computer user. Easy to understand explanations, illustrations and step-by-step hands-on exercises make 'Introduction to Computers for Teachers' a painless way to learn the basics or brush up on your skills.
Field trips are an excellent way for students to engage with and learn about artifacts while exploring places that are connected to their discipline of study, bringing their coursework to life. While in-person field trips can be challenging to organize, can be expensive, and usually involve travel, online technology has removed some of these barriers to bring virtual experiences available to students.
A WebQuest is an inquiry-oriented lesson format in which most or all the information that learners work with comes from the web. The WebQuest model was created in 1995 and has grown in popularity since. This approach to active learning positions the student in the center of the instructional activity and encourages them to use critical thinking, scientific reasoning, and problem-solving skills.
This course was designed to prepare teachers with the background knowledge and skills they will need to design and develop high-quality online learning experiences for their students. The history of online learning will be explored as well as strategies and best practices that lead to success in online learning environments. Combining effective pedagogy with engaging curriculum and a variety of technology tools, participants will learn how to increase teacher presence in virtual instruction to humanize the learning experience which builds academic and social connections in the online classroom.
The course, Interactive Boards, is designed for any teacher, technology coordinator, principal, or librarian working with an interactive board or monitor. Students will learn different aspects of how interactive boards affect learning and become proficient in the basic skills needed to navigate the devices. Through the process of completing the required assignments the participants will develop strategies for using their interactive board in their curriculum.
All Things Google will introduce educators to several Google products, including Google Classroom, Advanced Search, Google Drive, Google News, Google Sites, YouTube, and more. Significant emphasis will be placed on how these tools can impact classroom practice, including writing, teaching, and reflecting on lesson plans using Google tools. Students will also create "How-To" screencasts to teach their students and/or colleagues how to use these Google tools.
Our most popular course, Google Drive for Educators, is for all teachers, technology coordinators, administrators, and librarians who want to take personal and educational productivity to a new level. You will learn to create documents, quizzes, surveys, slideshows, and spreadsheets using five free Goole applications: Drive, Documents, Forms, Sheets, and Slides. These apps are easy to learn and packed with features.
Internet: Classroom on Wire is the perfect course for any teacher, technology coordinator, principal, or librarian who wants to use the Internet to enhance their classroom lessons and units. This hands-on course is designed for educators who already know how to navigate the Internet and now want to put this knowledge to some practical use.
Computer Projects for Your Classroom is designed for instructors and curriculum developers to explore multiple resources to assist them in developing practical lessons that involve using computers. The course activities and assignments focus on motivating student learning by integrating technology into the curriculum. Resources include over 100 online links to lesson plans and lesson ideas specially selected to inspire participants to create their lessons.
Bring the world into your classroom with innovative tools that make learning more interactive and engaging. The Using Google Maps and Earth course explores the possibilities of teaching with Google Maps and Earth, giving teachers the skills to create lessons that connect students to real-world places, cultures and events.
Storytelling is a timeless way to inspire, connect and educate. Today's technology opens even more exciting possibilities. In the Digital Storytelling course, you will learn to combine video, music, graphics and narration to create powerful, multimedia stories. Designed to spark creativity and engagement, this hands-on course will help you and your students bring ideas to life using technology for storytelling, including Photo Story 3, PowerPoint, Keynote, iMovie and Windows 10 Movie Maker.
The iPad has proven its tremendous potential to revolutionize the way students learn and teachers teach. This versatile teaching and learning tool becomes a textbook, calculator, drawing pad, interactive map, or speaking dictionary - all with an intuitive swipe of a finger. The iPad brings the world (via the Internet) literally into your hands.
Project-Based Learning Using Technology (PBL) is designed to train educators to succeed in using PBL infused with technology with their students. PBL is a teaching method in which your students gain knowledge and skills by working for an extended period to investigate and respond to authentic, engaging, and complex questions, problems, or challenges.
YouTube is a powerhouse in digital world and this course will cover how you can apply that same level of power into your instruction. We'll begin at the very beginning on how to discover and share content that is already online, then move on to how you can create your own content, and then easily improve it to look professionally polished for all viewers.
Data-Driven Decision-Making for Educators is all about empowering educators to be able to make informed decisions to improve student learning. The resources, activities, and assignments are designed for you to be able to analyze data, understand the different types of assessments and their proper use, run your own data reports, and communicate your findings with parents, educators, and policy makers.
Learn how Twitter can be the best professional development tool you have ever used! Create a Professional Learning Network (PLN) with other educators and experts to learn from and share ideas, activities, lesson plans, teaching strategies, the use of technologies, and classroom pedagogical reasoning. Students that take this course are absolutely amazed to learn what Twitter can do for them as an educator.
The flipped classroom reverses how class and home time are utilized. A flipped classroom means, at its most basic definition, that students watch a video of the day's lesson while at home. Then during class time, they work on problem sets, projects, and discussions. Traditional homework is done during the school day where students have access to the teacher's expertise and interaction with their peers while the lecture (lesson) would be watched at home.
Imagine the ability to collect ideas, lesson plans, activity resources, educational links, and news on a simple web-based platform. Curate these resources easily in boards that you create and title according to a filing system that fits exactly the way you organize. Welcome to Pinterest for Teachers, a course that is designed to give you the freedom to search for exactly what you want to learn. Connect with others who teach the same grades or subjects and curate at a pace that fits your individualized needs.
Education is constantly evolving, and as new trends take hold of the classroom, teachers must evolve and learn along with it. The Create a Classroom Website course will teach educators to create a presence on the Internet, including but not limited to websites, blogs, instructional videos, graphics, and other online tools commonly used for educational websites. The emphasis will be placed on free online tools.
Learn how to create standards-based technology-infused lessons and incorporate them into the curriculum. This course begins with studying state and locally adopted technology standards, including International Standards Technology Education (ISTE) Standards for Students, technology use plans, and subject matter standards.
Google Drive Expanding is an online course designed for educators who want to apply powerful online productivity tools to standards-based instruction. The course uses a combination of free Google applications and third-party add-ons and emphasizes collaboration with other educators and people worldwide.
You already own at least one great camera, whether it's a DSLR, smartphone, GoPro, or even a drone, but you may wonder why it produces such ordinary photos. In this class, we will unlock the potential of the gear you already have and transform those ordinary photos into extraordinary visual tools for instruction.
This course, Google Certified Educator Level 1 (GCEL1), is for students who want to pass the GCEL1 exam to become certified and expand their skills and knowledge on using Google applications to improve instruction, communication, and personal productivity. The organization Google for Education created the GCEL1 program.
Unlock the power of video editing with this dynamic course designed specifically for teachers! Whether you're new to video production or looking to sharpen your skills, this hands-on class will guide you through the fundamentals of creating engaging, professional-quality videos using Clipchamp and CapCut, two of the most intuitive video editors available for both desktops and student Chromebooks.
Formative! has now partnered with Google for Education, and is part of the G Suite Marketplace. It is one of the most powerful and free online tools available to classroom teachers. You will create custom formative assessments for your students that will allow you to easily assess and provide immediate feedback to your students in real time.
The Teaching With Canvas course is designed to help teachers transform their classrooms by mastering Canvas and learning to navigate the platform's Learning Management System (LMS). Canvas can open the door for teachers to engage students better and achieve better student outcomes. Educators leave this course ready to use Canvas in their classrooms, including creating content and managing student submissions and grades.
Apps for Educators is a series of courses for tech-minded educators. Quiz and Vocabulary Apps for Educators is the first in this series. Compare Kahoot and Quizziz. Which review application works best? Does it depend on the situation, the class, grade level or subject matter? Vocabulary acquisition is the foundation of content reading. Consider strategies and best practices to implement new vocabulary, and share what you have learned with other educators.
We live in a world where YouTube is the top-rated search engine. Presentation and Video Apps for Educators is designed to fit technology needs of a student-centered classroom. Both teachers and students know that technology is here to stay. However, it can be overwhelming. In this course, teachers and administrators will explore, research, and choose platforms that fit the needs of 'their' classrooms, not someone else's.
Digital Citizenship is the new frontier in education. Growing numbers of educators and parents alike are realizing that students today exist in two worlds -- the digital world and the real world. For years, educators have provided instruction when it comes to navigating the real world. Something we do not address, however, is how to successfully navigate the digital world. We can no longer afford to be absent in our students' digital lives.
Pixlr Editor is a browser photo editor for all your editing needs. Have full control over your images, including layers and effects. Pixlr Editor is the most popular advanced online photo editor. No download is required, and it's 100% free for everyone! Perfect for anyone looking for a great image editor, Pixlr requires no installation like Photoshop and GIMP, making it ideal for students using Chromebooks, or any computer.
Nearpod is an award-winning, interactive mobile-learning platform that engages students with images, videos, quizzes, polls, drawing boards, game-based quizzes, virtual field trips, VR and other collaboration tools. Teachers can create their own interactive lessons or access thousands of other premade lessons or search for lessons by grade, subject, or CCSS-aligned standard. Nearpod can be used in the classroom or with remote instruction.
The addition of computer graphics to your teaching materials will transform ordinary learning tasks into immersive, enjoyable FUN! Utilizing the free and easily accessed web-based programs: CloudPaint, PaintZ, and Sketchpad, teachers and their students will soon be creating eye-catching, engaging graphics, making this a must-know for any K-12 classroom!
Technology has expanded the ways teachers design learning experiences for students, but the ever-growing list of educational tools and apps can be overwhelming for classroom teachers. This book application course introduces teachers to an exciting and versatile set of tech tools through ready-to-use lessons for any grade level, content area, or curriculum.
iMovie is Apple's free video editing program for Macs, iPads and iPhones. It is very easy to learn and integrates very well with all Apple devices, yet also has many advanced features for easily creating captivating video content for educational and personal use. Educators can use iMovie to bring their lessons to life through video, sound, and pictures. iMovie has become a powerful and engaging tool to use in classrooms across the nation.
Zoom has come into its own in recent years. For educators. Zoom is an interactive, mobile, and collaborative tool for engaging students in the classroom and remotely. The many applications and features of Zoom expand the capabilities of the modern classroom. Teachers provide one-on-one student support and schedule video conferences. Zoom can be programmed to record class lessons and upload them to the cloud. Beyond technical features, understand how to prepare content for the platform.
With Canva for Education, teachers can collaborate with students and colleagues in creating visually appealing presentations for posters, infographics, videos, book reports, lesson plans, worksheets, and more. Canva's flexibility and ease of use, combined with over 60,000 ready-to-use templates, make it the go-to web-based tool for visual design for students and educators.
Google Certified Educator Level 2 is for students who want to become recognized as GCEL2 certified with expertise in Google applications and how to use the apps to improve student learning. Google for Education created GCEL2, which, in their words, "is for those educators who want to prove that they are advanced users with expertise in the use of Google classroom tools."
This fully online course introduces participants to playful apps and activities to get students excited about sharing what they know through digital artifacts. A digital artifact is a technology-enhanced documentation of student learning. Digital artifacts offer teachers an alternative to traditional assessment methods and an opportunity to know their students through creative personalized assignments.
Canva Plus is the next step after Canva for Education, created in response to Canva's rapid growth and powerful new features. As Canva continues to evolve - adding tools like AI helpers, photo and video editing, Sheets, and interactive apps - this course gives educators a chance to explore what's new and discover how these tools can support more engaging and efficient teaching.
Enjoy the benefits of 21st century learning. Discover the best apps and methods for student collaboration. Encouraging students to reach out to each other to solve problems and share knowledge not only builds collaboration skills, it leads to deeper learning and understanding. This class allows teachers to discover which collaboration and problem-solving apps work best in the classroom. Don't accept a one-size fits all mentality. Find what works best for you!
Creating a Bitmoji Classroom is a course where you learn to make your virtual classroom that makes learning come alive for your students as they connect to resources, get assignments, take quizzes, and much more. You will add graphics to build scenes such as a living room or a classroom using the online application Google Slides.
Technology Tools for Teaching Online is a hands-on course that takes a holistic view of the challenges of online teaching and the required technologies. Video conferencing is an integral part of this course, with tutorials and assignments designed for teachers to use their selected VC platform features. Teachers will learn to upload recorded VC sessions and make tutorials. There is much more to this course, including creating an online site for students/parents to keep informed.
In this course, The Great Courses teams up with the Smithsonian, the acknowledged leader in animal research, conservation, and education, to bring you these visually rich video lectures that take you behind the scenes of not only the animal world but of the scientists trying to understand how it works. This course offers a wonderful introduction to the fundamentals of zoology through the eyes of a trained zoologist.
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